Spices & Herbs: What are they?

A spice is a dried seed, fruit, root, bark, leaf, or vegetative substance used in nutritionally insignificant quantities as a food additive for the purpose of flavour, colour, or as a preservative that kills harmful bacteria or prevents their growth.
Many of these substances are also used for other purposes, such as medicine, religious rituals, cosmetics, perfumery or eating as vegetables. For example, turmeric is used as a preservative as well as in skin care; liquorice as a medicine; garlic as a vegetable.

Herbs are leafy, green plant parts used for flavouring purposes. Herbs, such as basil or oregano, may be used fresh or dried. Spices, however, are dried and often ground or grated into a powder. Small seeds, such as fennel and mustard seeds, are used both whole and in powder form.
Spices can be grouped as:

• Dried fruits or seeds, such as fennel, mustard, and black pepper.
• Arils, such as mace.
• Barks, such as cinnamon and cassia.
• Dried buds, such as cloves.
• Stigmas, such as saffron.
• Roots and rhizomes, such as turmeric, ginger and galingale.
• Resins, such as asa foetida

Early history

The earliest evidence of the use of spice by humans was around 50,000 B.C. The spice trade developed throughout the Middle East in around 2000 BC with cinnamon and pepper. The Egyptians used herbs for embalming and their need for exotic herbs helped stimulate world trade. In fact, the word spice comes from the same root as species, meaning kinds of goods. By 1000 BC China and India had a medical system based upon herbs. Early uses were connected with magic, medicine, religion, tradition, and preservation.
A recent archaeological discovery suggests that the clove, indigenous to the Indonesian island of Ternate in the Maluku Islands, could have been introduced to the Middle East very early on. Digs found a clove burnt onto the floor of a burned down kitchen in the Mesopotamian site of Terqa, in what is now modern-day Syria, dated to 1700 BC.
In the story of Genesis, Joseph was sold into slavery by his brothers to spice merchants. In the biblical poem Song of Solomon, the male speaker compares his beloved to many forms of spices.
In South Asia, nutmeg, which originates from the Banda Islands in the Molukas, has a Sanskrit name. Sanskrit is the ancient language of India, showing how old the usage of this spice is in this region. Historians believe that nutmeg was introduced to Europe in the 6th century BC.
The ancient Indian epic of Ramayana mentions cloves. In any case, it is known that the Romans had cloves in the 1st century AD because Pliny the Elder, spoke of them in his writings.
Indonesian merchants went around China, India, the Middle East and the East coast of Africa. Arab merchants facilitated the routes through the Middle East and India. This made the city of Alexandria in Egypt the main trading centre for spices because of its port. The most important discovery prior to the European spice trade were the monsoon winds (40 AD). Sailing from Eastern spice growers to Western European consumers gradually replaced the land-locked spice routes once facilitated by the Middle East Arab caravans.

Middle Ages

Spices were among the most luxurious products available in Europe in the Middle Ages, the most common being black pepper, cinnamon (and the cheaper alternative cassia), cumin, nutmeg, ginger and cloves. They were all imported from plantations in Asia and Africa, which made them extremely expensive. From the 8th century until the 15th century, the Republic of Venice had the monopoly on spice trade with the Middle East, and along with it the neighboring Italian city-states. The trade made the region phenomenally rich. It has been estimated that around 1,000 tons of pepper and 1,000 tons of the other common spices were imported into Western Europe each year during the Late Middle Ages. The value of these goods was the equivalent of a yearly supply of grain for 1.5 million people. While pepper was the most common spice, the most exclusive was saffron, used as much for its vivid yellow-red color as for its flavor. A popular modern-day misconception is that medieval cooks used liberal amounts of spices, particularly black pepper, merely to disguise the taste of spoiled meat. However, a medieval feast was as much a culinary event as it was a display of the host's vast resources and generosity, and as most nobles had a wide selection of fresh or preserved meats, fish, or seafood to choose from, the use of ruinously expensive spices on cheap, rotting meat would have made little sense.

Early modern period

The control of trade routes and the spice-producing regions were the main reasons that Portuguese navigator Vasco da Gama sailed to India in 1499. Spain and Portugal were not happy to pay the high price that Venice demanded for spices. At around the same time, Christopher Columbus returned from the New World, he described to investors the many new, and then unknown, spices available there.
Afonso de Albuquerque (1453–1515) allowed the Portuguese to take control of the sea routes to India. In 1506, he took the island of Socotra in the mouth of the Red Sea and, in 1507, Ormuz in the Persian Gulf. Since becoming the viceroy of the Indies, he took Goa in India in 1510, and Malacca on the Malay peninsula in 1511. The Portuguese could now trade directly with Siam, China, and the Moluccas. The Silk Road complemented the Portuguese sea routes, and brought the treasures of the Orient to Europe via Lisbon, including many spices.
With the discovery of the New World came new spices, including allspice, bell and chili peppers, vanilla, and chocolate. Although new settlers brought herbs to North America, before 1750 it was thought that you could not grow plants or trees outside their native habitat. This belief kept the spice trade, with America as a late comer with its new seasonings, profitable well into the 19th century.
In the Caribbean, the island of Grenada is well known for growing and exporting a number of spices, including the nutmeg, which was introduced to Grenada by the settlers.

Getting the right blend of herbs and spices for a curry to taste delicious is an art form. Spices also have the capacity to enhance each other to bring out thier full potential, when used in the right proportions together. Find out all the healing properties of the herbs and spices used in our gourmet products:

Ajwain, Asafoetida, Bay Leaf, Cardamom, Chillies, Cinnamon, Cloves, Coriander, Cumin, CurryLeaves, Fenugreek, Garam Masala, Garlic, Ginger, Lemon, Mustard, Nutmeg, Onions, Pepper, Saffron, Tamarind, Tomatoes, Turmeric

This is a very interesting website I came across while developing the information for this section on spices. Definitely deserves a look.

http://www.uni-graz.at/~katzer/engl/index.html

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Tea

Over the past years I have been enjoying the health benefits of tea. Again along with herbs and spices, tea is another fabulous gift from nature. Drinking a pot of Green Tea both in the early parts of the morning as well as late afternoon if I you can manage it will give you numerous health benefits including lowering cholestrol, aiding with blood pressure, in weight loss management and is full of anti-xidants.Over the last few decades green tea has been subjected to many scientific and medical studies to determine the extent of its long-purported health benefits, with some evidence suggesting regular green tea drinkers may have lower chances of heart disease and developing certain types of cancer.

Tea Recipes

Ayurveda

Ayurveda meaning the 'science of life' is a system of traditional medicine native to the Indian Subcontinent and practiced in other parts of the world as a form of alternative medicine. Energy is everywhere and in everything. It is imporant to balance the body, mind and spirit with nature and energy. Ayurveda uses herbs and spices along with exercise, yoga, meditation, and massage to balance the 5 elements earth, water, fire, air and ether—all of which compose the Universe, including the human body and the 3 Humors or Energies: vata (air in space - wind), pitta (fire in water -bile) and kapha (water in earth -phlegm). Thus, body, mind, and spirit/consciousness need to be addressed both individually and in unison for health to ensue.

The Ayurvedic Institute is a wealth of knowledge on Ayurveda and the Ayurvedic lifestyle.

India

India is our birth place, our motherland and a kaleidoscope of colour, history, ancient civilisations, huge battles, great knowledge, gold and spice trades and of course incredible food!

Incredible India

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