SG Heritage Dictionary

Salep [Noun] Webster's Dictionary 1828

In the materia medica, the dried root of a species of orchis; also, a preparation of this root to be used as food.

Salep [Noun] Webster's Dictionary 1913

The dried tubers of various species of Orchis, and Eulophia. It is used to make a nutritious beverage by treating the powdered preparation with hot water.

Salep Encyclopedia Britannica

SALEP (Arab. saḥleb, Gr. ὄρχις ), a drug extensively used in the East as a nervine restorative and fattener, and also much prescribed in paralytic affections, probably owed its original popularity to the belief in the so-called “doctrine of signatures.” In Europe it is chiefly used as a demulcent drink, but is also supposed to possess nutrient properties; it may be employed with advantage in inflammatory conditions of the mucous membrane, as in bronchitis, diarrhoea, cystitis, and other urinary disorders. It consists of the tuberous roots of various species of Orchis and Eulophia, which are decorticated, washed, heated until horny in appearance, and then carefully dried. The most important constituent of salep is a kind of mucilage which it yields to cold water to the extent of 48 per cent. This mucilage in its chemical reactions is more nearly allied to cellulose than to gum, since when dry it is readily soluble in ammoniacal solution of copper; when boiled with nitric acid it yields oxalic but not mucic acid. Salep also contains sugar and albumen, and when fresh traces of a volatile oil; dried at 100° C. it yields 2 per cent. of ash, chiefly the phosphates and chlorides of potassium and calcium....

Salep was formerly imported into Europe from the Levant, but in 1760 the French chemist Geoffroy discovered its true nature and showed how it might be prepared from the species of Orchis indigenous to France. That used in Germany is obtained from plants growing wild in the Taunus Mountains, the Westerwald, the Rhön, the Odenwald, and Franconia. Grecian salep is chiefly collected in Macedonia. In Asia Minor the tubers are collected near Melassa and Mughla, and about 330 tons are annually exported from Smyrna. The salep of the Bombay market, which is imported principally from Persia, Cabul, and northern India, occurs in three forms, palmate, large ovoid, and small ovoid tubers on strings, all more or less horny and translucent. Salep is also produced on the Nilgiri (Neilgherry) Hills and in Ceylon. Besides the above-mentioned forms, elongated cylindrical tubers, usually in pairs and undecorticated, are occasionally met with. The palmate tubers are the most highly esteemed, being valued at ten rupees per pound. This variety is known in the Bombay market as Persian salep. It is probably derived chiefly from O. latifolia, L., although O. maculata, L., O. saccifera, Brongn., and O. conopsea, L., also afford palmate tubers. The species known to yield ovate salep are O. mascula, O. Morio, O. pyramidalis, O. ustulata, O. militaris, 0. coriophora, L., and O. longicruris, Link. All these species are natives of the greater part of central and southern Europe, Turkey, the Caucasus, and Asia Minor, O. latifolia extending to western India and Tibet and O. conopsea to the Amur, in the extreme east of Asia. Salep is not easily reduced to powder, being both hard and tough, and is therefore usually ground between millstones. This difficulty is said to be lessened if the salep is first soaked in cold water until soft and then rapidly dried. As the powder does not mix readily with water, the authors of Pharmacographia (2d ed. p. 656) recommend that it should be first mixed with 1½ parts of rectified spirits of wine (brandy or other strong spirit would answer equally well), 40 parts of cold water being then added quickly and the mixture boiled. In these proportions salep affords a thick jelly.

9th ed. Encyclopædia Britannica, vol. 21, p. 211
[571 words — estimated reading time: 4 minutes]