Welcome to the summary page for FabulousFusionFood's Spice guide to Laurel Berries along with all the Laurel Berries containing recipes presented on this site, with 10 recipes in total.

This is a continuation of an entire series of pages that will, I hope, allow my visitors to better navigate this site. As well as displaying recipes by name, country and region of origin I am now planning a whole series of pages where recipes can be located by meal type and main ingredient. This page gives a listing of all the Cornish recipes added to this site.

These recipes, all contain as a major flavouring.

The laurel berry is the fruit of the bay tree, (also known as sweet bay, bay tree, true laurel, Grecian laurel, laurel tree), Laurus nobilis a member of the Lauraceae or laurel family of trees that are native to the Mediterranean region. Bay is an aromatic evergreen tree or large shrub with green, glossy leaves and is the source of bay leaves (bayleaves), commonly used in cooking. The bay tree is dioecious (unisexual), with male and female flowers on separate plants. Each flower is pale yellow-green, about 1 cm diameter, and they are borne in pairs beside a leaf. When fertilized, they develop into small, shiny black berries that are about 1cm long. When ripe, these are collected and dried and this is the 'laurel berry' used in cooking. The fruit contains essential oils and fatty oils.

Like the leaves, the laurel berries are aromatic and slightly bitter in taste. It is often classed as a 'robust' spice and tends to be used crushed or ground to flavour stews and meat stocks. Typically, the dried fruit 0.6 to 10% of essential oil. In a similar manner to the leaves, their aroma is mainly due to the presence of terpenes (cineol, terpineol, α- and β-pinene, citral), though the presence of cinnamic acid and its methyl ester have also been reported. The fatty oil is mainly composed of triglycerides of lauric acid (dodecanoic acid), myristic acid (tetradecanoic acid) and elaic acid.

Though not much used as a spice today, laurel berries were a very common spice in Ancient Roman times and many Roman recipes call for the use of 'laurel berries'. Interestingly, the English term 'bay' referring to the tree originates from the Middle English baye (Old French baie), which derives from the Latin bacca 'berry' and originally referred to the fruit. The name laurel derives from laurus, the Latin name for the bay tree.

Like juniper berries, laurel berries are best used for gravies and sauces, particularly in conjunction with game meats.