Spices add the zip and flavor to many of our foods. Without the familiar pepper, mustard, vanilla, nutmeg, cinnamon and cloves, as well as countless other less known spices, our meals would be flat and tasteless. Until the present war we took spices for granted and gave little thought as to where they came from or how they were obtained. Today we realize that most spices come from the tropics of Asia and the East Indies and because of war conditions are hard to get in this country.
In ancient times these spices were also hard to get; they often had to be brought by slow caravan route across Asia to western Europe, and they were prized more than many jewels. They were so much in demand that adventurous traders were always trying to find new and shorter routes to the Spice Islands, and it was while on such a quest that Columbus discovered America.
All spices are dried plant products fruit, stem, bark, root or flower-bud. The ginger known to all of us in ginger ale and gingerbread is the root of the Zingiber plant which grows in almost all warm countries. It is said that Marco Polo saw the ginger plant growing in China about the year 1280; the Chinese called it gingi. The parts of the ginger plant above ground look like our common iris, or flag; the roots are large, spongy and yellowish. Calcutta, in India, exports more ginger than any other city in the world.
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| The spice trade started with camel caravans. |
There is a tree the name of which means sweet smelling and it bears two fragrant spices, nutmeg and mace. The fruits look very much like apricots but the fleshy part around the seed is too dry and leathery to eat. When the fruit is ripe it bursts open, disclosing a bright red net-like membrane stretched over a brown shell. Inside the thin shell is hidden a brown kernel, and this is the nutmeg. Sometimes the nutmegs are sent to market in their shells, but more frequently they come without their shells and covered with lime for protection from insects and to prevent sprouting. People often buy nutmeg kernels and grate them at home, since powdered nutmeg loses some of its flavor.
The red membrane between the outer husk and the nutmeg shell is the spice known as mace. Mace is usually removed by hand from the nutmeg and is dried until its color changes to golden brown. Although they are parts of the same plant, mace and nutmeg have a different flavor. The greatest nutmeg plantations in the world are in the Banda Islands of the East. There are some fine gardens, however in the West Indies. One splendid tree in Jamaica bears over 4,000 nutmegs every year.
One of the most beautiful of all known trees is the clove tree, a native of the Molucca Islands in the East. Its pink flowers grow in clusters at the ends of the branches, surrounded by many leaves. The whole tree smells of cloves, although the flowers are the only parts used as spice. Cloves are flower-buds with petals folded snugly in a tight ball on top of a long flower base. Hidden inside the flower base or calyx are the seeds. If the flowers are allowed to go to seed before they are gathered they lose their flavor.
One of the most valuable spices comes from the bark of the cinnamon tree. It is the hardiest of any of the spice trees and grows best in the island of Ceylon. It is said to have been the first spice sought in early Oriental voyages. Bible history records cinnamon as a favorite spice among the ancient Hebrews. Roman historians told strange stories concerning the much-desired spice. According to one tale some large birds carried sticks of cinnamon from India to Arabia and built their nests of them. The Arabs were supposed to have destroyed the nests and sold the cinnamon in foreign markets.
Today, some spices are being produced in the warm tropics of the West Indies and America but the greatest supply is still obtainable only from the Asiatic countries. Some of the spices are being replaced by artificial products vanilla is a good example‚ but in most cases the substitute is not as good as the real spice. Fisher
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