Exotic spices

Spices and herbs have been sought since the beginning of written history for culinary and medicinal purposes, but many people confuse the terms spices and herbs. A spice is the dried fruiting body of a plant, whole fruit, grain, or seed. A spice can also be the dried roots and bark of a plant, where the dry leaves of a plant are generally considered as herbs. There are a few exceptions to these definitions, for example, the dried leaves of the fenugreek plant, Methi curry, are considered a spice rather than a herb.

Many of our spices come from far away places like India and Southeast Asia or Mexico and the Caribbean. The spice trade that brought these once rare spices to Europe created great fortunes for many trading companies. In fact, the spice trade dates back more than 5,000 years and was instrumental in establishing trade and commerce throughout the world.

Today, spices that were previously unavailable to the general public have been naturalized in many parts of the world. Due to advances in trade and shipping, these once-rare and expensive spices can easily be purchased from specialty stores or online. Still, many people are unaware of the variety of spices that exists beyond the local market. Here is a list of some of the more exotic spices you may not find locally, but worth looking for.

Saffron: Saffron is easily the most expensive spice in the world. It comes from the stigma of blue flowering saffron (crocus sativus). The stigma needs to be selected by hand and it takes a lot of stigma (200-500) to make 1 gram of saffron, which explains why it is so expensive. Fortunately, only a small amount is necessary to impart its beautiful color and flavor to food. Saffron is used in paella, in addition to many sauces, rice, and seafood dishes.

Grains of Paradise: also known as Melegueta pepper or Guinea beans. It comes from the Amomum melegueta tree that grows in West Africa. This tree is related to ginger and cardamom. It was commonly used as a substitute for pepper when the price of pepper became too high. Grains of Paradise are widely used in Caribbean and African cuisine and will impart a spicy, aromatic and spicy flavor to any dish.

Sumac-Sumac comes from the dried berries of the Rhus coriaria plant, also known as Sicilian Sumac or North American Sumac Rhus aromatica. There are many varieties of Sumac, and some are poisonous, so care must be taken to avoid those varieties. Berry or powder is used as a sour agent. It imparts a sour lemon flavor and complements fish and red meat very well. It is widely used in the cuisine of North Africa, the Middle East and the southern Mediterranean.

Amchur Powder: Amchur powder is made from green mangoes that have been sliced, sun dried, and then ground into a fine powder. It is commonly used as a sour agent in North Indian cuisine.

Ajwain: also known as Ajowan caraway, carambola seeds, or bishops herb. It tastes similar to thyme or caraway seeds, only stronger. It is used in small amounts after being dry roasted or fried in lard or oil. It belongs to the Apiaceae family along with coriander and cumin. It is used in Indian and Pakistani cuisine.

Machalepi - Also spelled Mahleb or Mahlebi, this spice comes from the St. Lucie cherry pit, Cerasus mahaleb, which is a member of the Rosaceae or Rose family. Its flavor has a touch of almond with accents of rose and cherry. It is popular in Greece, the countries of the Middle East, and Mediterranean cuisine. It is used in baking.

Why spices are important

These days, certain spices have become so ubiquitous on our tables that we hardly consider them spices ... Black pepper is the obvious example here, but it would also include chilies in the form of sauces and pastas. Just think of the salt and pepper cellars on almost every table and the chili-based condiments that are everywhere. Also, look at any recipe on the web and if they are for a savory dish, I guarantee that more than 90% will have 'season with salt and pepper' somewhere in the cooking instructions.

Today, black pepper is cheap and plentiful, and it's hard for us to even consider a time when pepper was an incredibly rare and expensive product. However, until very recently (and even during World War II in Europe) black pepper was expensive and rare. It was only produced in India and reached Europe by strange and mysterious means.

The first recorded use of black pepper in Europe and North Africa was in the tomb of Pharaoh Ramses II, who had two peppercorns trapped in these nostrils when he was mummified (and that was 4,000 years ago). But the first western peoples to use black pepper widely were the Greeks and introduced the love of this spice to the Romans. As a result, the Romans were the first Europeans to travel to India in search of this magical substance (of course, Indian merchants had been going in the other direction for centuries!).

In many ways, black pepper is the perfect spice, as it has the "heat" and the "spiciness" that soothes the flavors of a dish but does not bring any hint of bitterness. Therefore, it gives all foods a 'push' in terms of flavor without making them unpleasant (which is why the Romans even put pepper in their desserts!).

But what is really a spice? In terms of a modern definition, a spice is typically obtained from the dried fruiting body of a plant. Therefore, it can be the whole fruit (as in cubeb pepper or the berries of allspice or cumin) or it is the grain or the seed of the fruit (as in the nutmeg and fenugreek seeds or seeds of nigella). In contrast, herbs are the vegetative parts of a plant (the stems and leaves) and include lemon grass (stems), thyme (leaves), oregano (leaves). Spices are also obtained from the roots, rhizomes, or tubers of plants. Therefore, ginger (and its relatives, galangal, zedoary, etc.) are spice blends for sale, as is the medieval spice, galingale (the root of a sedge, a herb-like plant).

Humans are strange among animals because we like spiciness in our food and many, many spices that we use or have used tend to have this note in their flavor. This, in turn, has led us as a species to use a whole range of spices in our cuisine and many of these spices somehow echo the distinctive nature of black pepper.

This is the reason why chili, when introduced to Europe from the Americas, was called 'chile' (to associate it with black pepper). In fact, the vast majority of spices impart "heat" to a dish, and only a few are used exclusively for their flavoring properties. Chili is widely used because it imparts pure "heat" to a dish, but it does not have the pungent flavor of black pepper and that is why the chili, although widely used today, has not yet displaced black pepper like King of Spices.

Most of our common and not-so-common spices have a spicy heat and flavor that mimic black pepper in one way or another. But all of them also impart a bitterness to the foods they season. Good examples are cubeb pepper (common in the Middle Ages) and Senegal pepper (which was used as a substitute for black pepper during World War II). They transmit both heat and spiciness to dishes, but if used in excess they also impart an unpleasant bitterness and that is why they never really rivaled black pepper as food flavorings.

In our yearning to add that extra 'pep' to our food, humans have toured every corner of the world and we have tried and added some very strange things to our dishes (Sichuan pepper, beloved of Chinese cuisine is a relative of the orange!). But nothing has rivaled the preeminence of black pepper in the kitchen. The only spice that comes close is chili.

Anardana- Anardana is the dried seed of several wild pomegranate plants. It has a sour and slightly fruity flavor. It works well in a mixture of dry seasonings for fish or as a marinade to season meats, especially venison. It is a common ingredient in hot sauce.

Juniper berries: Juniper berries are believed to be the only spice that comes from a conifer and cold weather. They grow on small juniper bushes that are common throughout the northern hemisphere. They are a main ingredient in gin. Seeds can take three years to mature and are collected when they turn blue. They have an aromatic flavor with a sweet accent and are popular in European cuisine.

Kala Jeera - Belongs to the parsley family and is popular in North Indian cuisine to flavor rice and meat dishes. It has a rich, nutty flavor that is slightly grassy. The seeds are small and crescent-shaped and have a strong bitter odor. Also known as black cumin.