Chemical composition and distribution of the headspace volatiles in commercial culinary herbs and spices: Chemometric approach

Fast determination of the volatile components of widely used culinary herbs and spices, without prior preparation of the sample, using headspace sampling (HS) and GC–MS/FID analysis, is presented. Generally, monoterpenes were the dominant class in HS volatiles (HSV): monoterpene hydrocarbons in dill, celery, parsnip and parsley, and oxygenated monoterpenes in coriander, bay laurel and rosemary. The HSV of ginger and clove samples differed from the others due to their high content of sesquiterpene hydrocarbons and phenylpropanoids, respectively. The most extreme case of limited distribution was related to the samples of garlic-HSV comprised organosulfur compounds and none of the above mentioned classes. Furthermore, the HSV data were processed via principal component analysis, making visible the variability and tendency between the investigated samples. Lastly, the research provides insights in many HS profiles of culinary herbs and spices, giving relative representation of volatiles as well as differences and deviation in terms of HSV content.