The Pizzazzy

Spices are the core of every kitchen, each one rich in a unique fragrance and aroma. Interestingly, the different spices can be a flower, a fruit, a root, a bark, a leave or even sap of plants. How they have evolved and entered into the world kitchen must be a journey in itself. Here’s some first hand information that I collected from our visit to Savoi spice plantation: the oldest in Goa. The spices grown in Goa are the ones suitable for tropical climate.

Cinnamon:
Cinnamon is commonly used condiment in Indian cooking especially in chicken and meat. It is an evergreen tree around 10-15 meters tall. It’s the bark which is widely used as a spice. I confused the leaves of the tree for bay leaves. The flowers are tiny having a greenish colour, and have an odour about them. The fruits are purple in color sized like peppers.
Our guide told us that Cinnamon is harvested by growing the tree for around two years. And once the tree is mature enough it is cut down to a low level leaving only about 40-50 inches of the trunk. Then many shoots stem out of the tree in the next year. The inner bark of these shoots is dried. These curl into rolls of cinnamon after drying. Each tree is capable of giving around 10-12 such shoots in a single harvest. Each shoot is around a meter long. I like eating the cinnamon directly, of course in small quantities. It’s a perfect combination of sweet and hot taste.

Cardamom:
I was actually surprised to see Ginger or Turmeric like plant and to be told by our guide that it was cardamom plants. Yes, Cardamom belongs to the Ginger family. The plants start yielding after 3 years of plantation. The cardamom pods grow at ground level. Stems protrude from the roots above the ground. Each stem contains around 10-15 pods of cardamom. They are picked every 30 days. The pods are touched and felt during picking. To retain the green color they are picked before they are ripe and then processed.

Since it was not the cardamom season we missed seeing it actually growing. I would love to visit another spice garden some day specially to check out the cardamom. Its one of the most costly spice by weight but one of the strongest in flavour. I like to use them whole in my chicken curry or a pinch of grounded seeds in my masala tea. This also reminds me of a tapri outside my college in Nasik that was famous for its elaichi coffee.

Black Pepper:
A vine very similar in look to beetle vine bears the fruit which is pepper. The same fruits can be used as white pepper or green. Its one of the most commonly used spice in most of the kitchen and shares common space on the dinner table with none other than salt. Our guide elaborated on how the pepper plants are propagated from cuttings and usually tied with tall trees like beetle nut trees. In the garden I could see pepper vines climbing up the beetle nut trees.

It takes the plant around five years to start fruiting, and they grow in groups around a spike. Each pepper vine can bear around 30 such spikes. When a few of them turns read its time to pick the spikes. The spikes are dried and the pepper corns are removed from them. The white pepper is nothing but black pepper without its black cover. I like it black as it has stronger flavour than the white.

I’ll be covering some more spices in my next post.