Carmona M, Zalacain A, Salinas M R, Alonso G L
Cátedra de Química Agrícola, E.T.S.I.A., Universidad Castilla-La Mancha, Albacete, 02071, Spain.
Crit Rev Food Sci Nutr. 2007;47(2):145-59. doi: 10.1080/10408390600626511.
The aroma of saffron has received much attention from scientists in recent years, not only for the compounds that make it up, but also for its glycosidic precursors. Despite it all, the volatile generation mechanisms of the spice are almost completely unknown. Only the generation of safranal, the major compound, from picrocrocin has been established. The great effort carried out to detect and identify the volatile compounds of saffron has not been enough to clarify which compounds are responsible for saffron aroma. In general, scientists has devoted little attention to the sample analyzed, taking for granted that all saffron is the same, something that makes it difficult to establish a comparison between the results obtained by the different authors, to the point that saffron aroma has not been defined yet. It must be clarified whether saffron aroma is what the consumer perceives via nasally when a container of the spice is uncovered, or whether on the contrary, it is the aroma conferred to food, normally after a thermal cooking process, and perceived retronasally. After an extensive bibliographic research, simple assays are suggested to understand what could be considered as saffron aroma, results that may help to delimit the research for future studies.
近年来，藏红花的香气备受科学家关注，这不仅是因为构成它的化合物，还因为其糖苷前体。尽管如此，这种香料的挥发性成分生成机制几乎完全未知。目前仅确定了主要成分藏红花醛是由苦藏花素生成的。为检测和鉴定藏红花挥发性化合物所做的大量努力，仍不足以阐明哪些化合物构成了藏红花的香气。总体而言，科学家们对所分析的样本关注甚少，想当然地认为所有藏红花都是一样的，这使得不同作者所得结果之间难以进行比较，以至于藏红花的香气至今尚未明确界定。必须弄清楚藏红花的香气是指当打开装有这种香料的容器时消费者通过鼻腔所感知到的，还是相反，是通常在热烹饪过程后赋予食物并通过鼻后感知到的香气。经过广泛的文献研究，建议进行简单试验以了解什么可被视为藏红花的香气，这些结果可能有助于为未来的研究划定范围。
