Buckwheat or common buckwheat is a flowering plant in the knotweed family Polygonaceae cultivated for its grain-like seeds and as a cover crop. Buckwheat originated around the 6th millennium BCE in the region of what is now Yunnan Province in southwestern China. The name "buckwheat" is used for several other species, such as Fagopyrum tataricum, a domesticated food plant raised in Asia.
Soba are Japanese noodles made primarily from buckwheat flour, with a small amount of wheat flour mixed in. It has an ashen brown color, and a slightly grainy texture. The noodles are served either chilled with a dipping sauce, or hot in a noodle soup. They are used in a wide variety of dishes.
The cucumber is a widely-cultivated creeping vine plant in the family Cucurbitaceae that bears cylindrical to spherical fruits, which are used as culinary vegetables. Considered an annual plant, there are three main types of cucumber—slicing, pickling, and seedless—within which several cultivars have been created. The cucumber originates in Asia extending from India, Nepal, Bangladesh, China, and Northern Thailand, but now grows on most continents, and many different types of cucumber are grown commercially and traded on the global market. In North America, the term wild cucumber refers to plants in the genera Echinocystis and Marah, though the two are not closely related.
The genus Fagopyrum is in the flowering plant family Polygonaceae. It includes some important food plants, such as F. esculentum (buckwheat) and F. tataricum. The genus is native to the Indian subcontinent, much of Indochina, and central and southeastern China. Species have been widely introduced elsewhere, throughout the Holarctic and parts of Africa and South America.
Brassica oleracea is a plant species from family Brassicaceae that includes many common cultivars used as vegetables, such as cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, kale, Brussels sprouts, collard greens, Savoy cabbage, kohlrabi, and gai lan.
Quercetin is a plant flavonol from the flavonoid group of polyphenols. It is found in many fruits, vegetables, leaves, seeds, and grains; capers, red onions, and kale are common foods containing appreciable amounts of it. It has a bitter flavor and is used as an ingredient in dietary supplements, beverages, and foods.
Rutin is the glycoside combining the flavonol quercetin and the disaccharide rutinose. It is a flavonoid glycoside found in a wide variety of plants, including citrus.
Quercitrin is a glycoside formed from the flavonoid quercetin and the deoxy sugar rhamnose.
2-Nonenal is an unsaturated aldehyde. The colorless liquid is an important aroma component of aged beer and buckwheat, and is insoluble in water.
Furaneol, or strawberry furanone, is an organic compound used in the flavor and perfume industry. It is formally a derivative of furan. It is a white or colorless solid that is soluble in water and organic solvents.
(E,E)-2,4-Decadienal is an aromatic substance found in butter, cooked beef, fish, potato chips, roasted peanut, buckwheat and wheat bread crumb. In an isolated state, it smells of deep fat flavor, characteristic of chicken aroma (at 10ppm). At lower concentration, it has the odor of citrus, orange or grapefruit. It might be carcinogenic. It has been used as aroma in the EU, but use restrictions apply until the required data have been submitted.
2-Methoxy-4-vinylphenol is an aromatic substance used as a flavoring agent. It is one of the compounds responsible for the natural aroma of buckwheat.
Orientin is a flavone, a chemical flavonoid-like compound. It is the 8-C glucoside of luteolin.
Epicatechin gallate (ECG) is a flavan-3-ol, a type of flavonoid, present in green tea. It is also reported in buckwheat and in grape.
Fagopyrin is a term used for several closely related naturally occurring substances in the buckwheat plant. Their chemical structure contains a naphthodianthrone skeleton similar to that of hypericin.
In agriculture, shattering is the dispersal of a crop's seeds upon their becoming ripe. From an agricultural perspective this is generally an undesirable process, and in the history of crop domestication several important advances have involved a mutation in a crop plant that reduced shattering—instead of the seeds being dispersed as soon as they were ripe, the mutant plants retained the seeds for longer, which made harvesting much more effective. Non-shattering phenotype is one of the prerequisites for plant breeding especially when introgressing valuable traits from wild varieties of domesticated crops.
Falcarindiol is a polyyne found in carrot roots which has antifungal activity. Falcarindiol is the main compound responsible for bitterness in carrots. Falcarindiol and other falcarindiol-type polyacetylenes are also found in many other plants of the family Apiaceae, including some commonly used seasonings such as dill and parsley.
Fagopyrum cymosum, also known as tall buckwheat, is a domesticated plant used in traditional Chinese medicine, for animal feed, and as an ornamental plant. It is native to much of China, and to Bhutan, Nepal, India, Burma, and Vietnam.
2-Hydroxybenzylamine is a natural product found in Himalayan tartary buckwheat. It acts as an antioxidant and scavanger of free radicals and isolevuglandins and is sold as a dietary supplement.
