OILS AND OILCAKE 



BRA8SICA 

 Gujarat Rape 



D.E.P., 

 i., 525 33; 

 v., 470 2. 

 Oil and 

 Oilcakes. 



I huvo referred to it aa one of the rathor remarkable vegetables prevalent 

 .MI I. in. and hardly met with outside, the rhea-fibre area of India. It occurs, 

 for example, in Dimtjpiir. Bogra, Kangpur, Kuch Bihar, and throughout the 

 valley of Assam. In nearly every peaaant garden a row or two of this plant A VtmtabU 

 may be aeen. It has a rosette of ground-leaves generally of a dark bluish-green M*oln 

 . ciloiir and with very broad yellow mid-ribs and leaf -stalks. When young it 



lilvi- >t cabbage, but in time it shoots up a much-branched inflorescence to 

 a height of four to six feet. This becomes clothed with numerous sessile leave*. 

 All the parts are eaten, more especially the young flowering shoots with their 

 delicate leaves. It is one of the most significant of vegetables, and there are 

 l>rl>ubly several easily recognised forms. It is known, throughout the area 

 indicated, as lai-hak or mustard-vegetable. This, with the previous species, 

 would appear to be the only cabbage-like vegetable that existed in India prior 

 to the introduction of the cabbage and cauliflower. 



THE OILS AND OILCAKES OF MUSTARD AND RAPE. 



In the foregoing observations mention has been made of the OILS 

 obtained from the various species of Rramtica and Emeu. It seems 

 desirable to bring into a separate paragraph a few of the more striking 

 characteristics of these oils and their oilcakes. All the species afford a 

 bland or fixed oil in addition to a volatile or essential oil (Gildemeister 

 and Hoffmann, Volatile Oils (Engl. transl.), 1900, 182, 409-17). The 

 essential oil is practically not known to the people of India, so that 

 when mustard, rape or sarson oils are mentioned (by popular writers) it 

 should invariably be accepted that they are alluding to the fixed or 

 fatty oils. The peculiar properties of the essential oil are those on which 

 the merit of a mustard seed mainly depends. It is on this account, 

 therefore, that the researches of Kinzel are of such special interest 

 to India. The passages already quoted from his report give an estimate 

 of the percentage of mustard-oil (a term used in Europe to denote the 

 essential oil only) present in the samples examined by him. Previous 

 reports on the presence of this oil, in the various qualities of Indian 

 rape and mustard, have been unsatisfactory because not definite ; they 

 have accordingly retarded foreign exports. Schimmel & Co. give the 

 following as the percentage of mustard- oil in the samples examined by 

 them : Russian seed, 0'4 to 0'5 ; Dutch, 0'7 to 0'8 ; Italian, 0'6 to ! 7 ; 

 East Indian, 0*6 to 0*7 ; German, 0'7. Kinzel gives the average yield 

 of tori seed as 0'549, rai seed 0*814, and sarson 0'708 per cent. 

 (Agri. Ledg., 1901, 104.) The pungency of the Indian is thus not so 

 very different from the corresponding European seeds. 



The karwa-tel (= bitter oil) is the fatty oil obtained from Indian 

 mustard and rape seed, and inferior qualities from sarson. It is the 

 chief oil used in Indian cookery, and is accordingly very important to 

 the people. Rape (and sometimes also sarson) is in India largely used 

 to anoint the body. The practice seems to be fairly ancient, since it is 

 alluded to by Terry (Voy. East Ind. (ed. Havers), 1665, 377) as follows : 

 " The better sort anoint themselves very much with sweet oyls, which 

 makes their company very savory." Rape and sarson (colza) are names 

 which unfortunately have come to be used almost synonymously by 

 Indian commercial men, and are so treated in official statistics. Never- 

 theless the fatty oils derived from them are even more distinct from 

 each other than are those from the corresponding European plants. In 

 the Kew Report (1877, 34 ; Kew Bull, 1894, 96-7) we read that the Indian 

 seed known as " Gujarat Rape," largely crushed at Dantzic, is found to 

 yield 3J per cent, more oil than the European seed, and leaves a cake 



183 



Percentage of 

 Mustard-oil. 



Pungency. 



Cooking-oil. 



"Gujarat 

 Rapo." 



Rape and 



Mu^tunl U 



