Salep is a Turkish drink made from the roots of several species of orchids. The term can refer both to the roots themselves and to a beverage made from them. Today, due to concerns about Turkey's orchid population, it can be challenging to find true salep outside of the country, as the nation has severely curtailed exports. As a result, beverages made with artificial flavorings are commonly available in places where people have a taste for this distinctive product.
Both Orchis mascula and O. militaris are used to produce salep; the name is derived from the Arabic sahlap, which means “orchid.” These roots contain a distinctive starch which gives salep a unique texture and mild flavor. Traditionally, the roots are ground and sold in a powdered form, with cooks adding the powder to hot beverages, desserts, and sometimes ice cream, as well.
Classically, salep is offered as a winter beverage, made by whisking the power in with milk, sugar, and spices. Plain salep has a very mild, slightly creamy flavor, while versions with spices are a bit more exciting. The powder can also be included in ice creams and sherbets for warm weather consumption; classically, frozen desserts made with it are chewy, rather than creamy, thanks to the thickening properties of the powder.
Because the roots of the orchids used to make salep have a rather suggestive shape, this food has historically been used as an aphrodisiac. Under the principles of sympathetic medicine, doctors would also recommend it to men who experienced fertility or virility issues, under the belief that consuming objects which looked sort of like testicles would confer the properties of healthy testes.
In the 1600s, a general fascination with the Orient led to a brief fad for salep in England and some other parts of Europe. Typically, orange or rose water was used to flavor the drink in English cafes, and sometimes other species of orchids would be used as well. Today, salep or versions made with artificial flavorings can be found in communities with a large Turkish population. People who travel to Turkey may want to take advantage of the trip to get the genuine powder, as it truly is a unique experience.
Botanical Source and History.—Formerly, the tubers derived from Eulophia campestris and E. herbacea, Lindley, and related species, growing in Persia and the Levant, constituted the drug salep. South and central Europe now furnish salep, and the only kinds admitted in the German Pharmacopoeia are those unbranched tubers derived from Orchis mascula, Linné; Orchis ustulata, Linné; Orchis Morio, Linné; Platanthera bifolia, Reichenbach; Anacamptis pyramidalis, Richard;and other related species. The tubers are gathered, scalded, and dried quickly, which process removes their bitterness and disagreeable odor, as well as renders them somewhat translucent. The Oriental salep is less translucent than that from Europe. Oriental salep is dark in color. Among other species, the Orchis masculata, Linné; Orchis latifolia, Linné; Orchis sambucina, Linné;and Gymnadaenia conopsea, Robert Brown, furnish the flattish, palmately-divided tubers, having 3 to 5 divisions. They resemble the commercial grades, excepting that they contain less mucilage. They were once called Radix Palmae Christi.
Description and Chemical Composition.—European salep is never so large as Oriental salep, which ranges from 1 to 1 3/5 inches in length, ovoid, oval, oblong, or pyriform, more or less flattened and corrugated, and marked at the apex with a terminal bud-scar. It is yellowish and translucent, hard, and horn-like, and without odor, but has a mucilaginous and somewhat insipid taste. In commerce it occurs mostly as a yellowish powder. The chief constituents of salep, according to Dragendorff (1865), are mucilage (48 per cent), starch (27 per cent), albuminous bodies (5 per cent), etc. The mucilage of salep is soluble in cold water, this solution being precipitated by alcohol, and by basic lead acetate.
Action, Medical Uses, and Dosage.—Salep is nutrient and demulcent. Administered in milk, water, broth, or jelly, it is useful in the summer diarrhoeas of infants and children, and in the chronic diarrhoea of adults, particularly that form associated with tuberculosis. A good mucilage may be prepared by macerating 40 grains of salep in some cold water, and subsequently adding boiling water until 8 fluid ounces of water have been used. The jelly may be prepared by rubbing 30 grains of salep with water until the powder has swollen fourfold, and gradually adding, with continual stirring, 8 fluid ounces of boiling water; boil until but 4 ounces remain. Like tapioca and similar products, it may be freely administered.
Related Species.—Asphodelus bulbosus. The corm of this plant, under the term "Tsinisse," is used in eastern countries as a mucilage, and to adulterate powdered salep
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