Spices

Aniseed
Aniseed is one of the oldest spices known to man. Aniseed is a carminative and expectorant and
essential in treating respiratory disorders. It is also used to flavor curries, cakes, bread, cookies.

Allspice
Also known as Pimento is a native of Jamaica where it grows almost wild. Allspice gets its name from
the fact that it has the flavours of clove, ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg and pepper.

Baharat Spice
Fragrant Middle Eastern blend with a full bodied flavour, with a hint of cayenne and cardamom, ideal
for casseroles or just as a rub for lamb or chicken roast.

Berbere Spice
Berbere is an essential seasoning in most African cuisine, especially Ethiopian. Great for winter
warming hot pots or as a sprinkle for barbequed meats.
 Biryani Spice
Want to transform the humble rice into a dish fit for a king? Biryani Spice is the answer; a
combination of whole and ground spices, lends itself well to chicken, beef or lamb.

Bombay Curry Powder

Is a robust blend of spices, versatile in all kinds of cuisine; great with meat, chicken, fish and even
veges. A totally soul satisfying blend.

Brown Cardamom Pods

The Cardamom belongs to the ginger family and grows wild in the rich moist forests of Southern
India. The brown variety has a strong spicy flavor and is great infused with rice.

Cajun Spice
If you haven’t heard of this hot peppery spice blend, you haven’t been living. Essential ingredient in
New Orleans style blackened fish or grilled chicken.

Caraway
Caraway is one of the most important spices in European bakeries where it is used to flavor bread and
biscuits. Caraway tea is excellent as an all round body cleanser .
 Cayenne Pepper
Cayenne Pepper is prepared from finely ground, small pungent chilies of East Africa, Japan or India. It
has a robust fresh fragrance and is medium on the heat range.

Ceylon Curry
This dark roasted spice blend is good enough to tame even the blandest of palates. A hot favorite in Sri
Lankan cuisine famous for its roast beef with oomph!

Cinnamon Ground
Cinnamon is the dried outer bark of the cinnamon tree. Sri Lanka grows the world’s best cinnamon
which is spicy sweet. Cinnamon is an essential ingredient of the famous Indian Chai tea.

Cloves
Cloves are the dried unopened flower buds of an evergreen tree of the myrtle family, native to South-
East Asia. Clove oil is used to relieve toothache as it is antiseptic in nature.

Cloves Ground
An essential ingredient in Garam Masala, curing ham and deserts. Many battles have been fought over
cloves by the Colonials. Cloves were once touted as aphrodisiac in Europe.
 Coriander
Coriander is a versatile spice/herb since all parts of the plant are used in cooking and interestingly
enough all parts taste different. Coriander tea is useful in fighting cholesterol.

Coriander Ground
Ground coriander seeds are a must have in every Asian Chef’s kitchen. It gives curries its distinctive
flavor. Coriander aids digestive functions and is packed with vitamin C.

Cumin
Cumin is native to North Africa and the Mediterranean but is now cultivated in many parts of the
world. Cumin is not only great in flavoring food but has many health promoting benefits as well.

Cumin Ground
One could go on and on about the many benefits of cumin in our diet. Not only does it taste great but
is also used in treating, sores, colic, insomnia, amnesia, and a boon for pregnant and nursing mothers.

Dhansak Spice
This heart warming Parsi delicacy is a Sunday lunch special. Full of goodness, Dhansak is a blend of
lentils and lamb cooked with herbs and spices, served with rice.
 Dukkah
Dukkah is this delightful blend of roasted hazelnuts, toasted sesame seed n exotic herbs & spices from
the mysterious land of Morocco. Be sure to impress your friends.

Fennel
Fennel has a sweet liquorice flavor. The seeds are used in pickling and in meat and rice dishes. Fennel
tea, had first thing in the morning is supposed to speed up our metabolism.

Fenugreek
Fenugreek is a strong, bitter tasting spice used in curries, but is essential for keeping good health since
it balances the body’s doshas . Its seeds can be sprouted and used in salads.

Fenugreek Ground
Fenugreek is a fantastic spice because of its many health promoting qualities. Its tea had daily helps
remove excess mucous, which is the main cause of disease in the body.

Garam Masala
A hot blend of 16 different spices brought together to create a fragrant explosion of taste and scent.
Indulge your senses with this exotic creation.
 Ginger ground
Ginger is known to be the elixir of life. It is said that a person who consumes ginger daily will live a
long and healthy life. Ginger stimulates the digestive fire and is also an aphrodisiac.

Green Cardamom Pods

This fragrant cardamom can be used to flavor savory and sweet dishes. It takes the place of vanilla in
eastern cooking. Cardamom promotes vitality, fights depression and cures digestive disorders.

Harrissa
A fiery hot blend from Morocco, delicious as a rub on roast lamb, barbeque chicken or grilled fish. A
delight for the connoisseur and life changing for the novice.

Hot Chili Powder

Chilies are native to South America and the Spanish spread them to the rest of the world. A must have
ingredient in curry dishes, chili powder determines how hot your curry will turn out.

Juniper Berries
This plump purple berry is native to Europe. It has a bitter sweet pine flavor with a peppery aftertaste
and is used to flavor gin, sauerkraut and game meats like venison and wild boar.
 Kashmir Garam Masala
This delicately fragrant spice blend comes from Kashmir, the land once known as paradise with its
gentle people and mouth watering rich cuisine.

Korma Spice
From North India, Korma, with its delicate flavors was a hot favorite of the Moguls. The sensual
aroma of nutmeg and cardamon is perfect to impress your date.

Mace
Mace is the outer covering of the nutmeg seed. It is bright red and lacy when fresh but turns dull
orange when dried. It is used to season corned meats and is one of the ingredients of Garam Masala.

Madras Sambhar
Hot Southern Indian concoction embellished with the lemony curry leaf is certain to change your
opinion about lentils, beans and veges.

Mustard Seeds
There are two varieties of mustard seeds, yellow which are mild and the dark brown which are
pungent and bitter. Mustard is a universal spice and can be found as a flavoring in all kinds of cuisines.

Mysoore Magic
Need some magic in your kitchen? Try Mysoore Magic, a versatile spice that can transform a simple
curry into an exotic delight. Not too hot, just right.
 Nigella
Often called wild onion seed and sometimes even black cumin, Nigella has a hot pungent taste and
used liberally in Bengali cuisine. It is also used to garnish Turkish and other Mid Eastern breads.

Nutmeg
Nutmeg is the seed of the nutmeg tree and is enclosed in a hard shell. Its flower is the spice Mace. It
has a sweet spicy aroma and is best bought whole and grated for use as and when needed.

Nutmeg Ground
Nutmeg is native to South East Asia and the West Indies. Nutmeg Nutmeg is used to enhance
seasonings and flavor sweets and desserts. It is a very potent spice and should be used sparingly.

Panch Phora
A combination of 5 spices, Panch Phora, a hot favorite in Bengal cuisine, turns the humble potato into
an exquisite dish, guaranteed to impress the toughest critics.

Paprika Smoked
This is the smoked version of the paprika and comes from the region of Murcia in Spain. It is this
paprika that gives the distinctive flavor to chorizo sausages and the condiments that make up tapas.
 Paprika Sweet
This Hungarian Paprika is made from dried sweet chili-pepper pods. It is mild flavored and imparts a
rich red hue to whatever dish it is added. It is rich in vitamin C content.

Pepper Corns Black

Pepper is one of the oldest and most widely used spices. It is known as “King of Spices” and many
battles have been fought over it in the Middle Ages. Black pepper is a stimulant and tonic.

Pepper Corns White

When the fruit of the pepper corn is treated in water and its outer layer removed, we have what is
called White Pepper Corns. Besides its culinary uses, white pepper has many health benefits.

Pilaf Spice
Pilaf Spice is that fusion of spices that creates the festive must-have Saffron Rice popular all over the
Indian Subcontinent and Middle East, right up to Turkey.

Poppy Seeds
Poppy seeds are found in the heads of the opium flower. They are ground into a paste and used to
thicken curries and gravies. Opium, derived from poppy is the source of the valuable drug morphine.
Rogan Josh
An all time winner with curry lovers over the world, Rogan Josh is a mild to medium spice blend that
goes well with meat, chicken and veges.

Sesame Seed Black

These are the unhulled variety of sesame seed, used extensively in Japanese cuisine and on
Continental breads as a sprinkle. Sesame seeds are a rich source of Estrogen.

Sesame Seed White

These tiny seeds are native to India where they are highly valued for their nutritional oil and used in
confectionery. In the Mid East sesame seeds are used to make tahineh and halwa.

South African Curry Powder

This is the closest you will find to the authentic curry blends of South Africa. Dynamic, with a good
dose of heat, is fantastic with coconut based fish, prawn or goat curries.

Star Anise
The Star Anise is perhaps the prettiest and most sweet smelling spice. Rice cooked with Star Anise is
the most appetizing and aromatic. Star Anise is widely used in potpourri for its fragrance.

Tandoori Spice
A potent spice blend that is capable of making an event out of a simple Barbeque party. Invite the boss
and impress him with your special Tandoori Chicken/lamb.

Turmeric
Turmeric is a rhizome of the lily family, and its root is dried and used in powdered form as a spice. It
imparts a unique flavor and color to the dish and when fresh can be sliced and added to salads.

Vindaloo Spice
Not for the faint hearted, Vindaloo comes from the former Portuguese colony of Goa. Once tasted,
people have been known to become slaves to this fiery hot blend.

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. Generally,
Egyptian, Chinese, Indian, and Mesopotamian sources do not refer to known 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 demanded and expensive 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. Given the medieval medicine's main theory of humorism, spices and herbs
were viewed as indispensable elements to balance "humors" in food, a daily basis for good health at a
time of recurrent pandemics.

Spices were all imported from plantations in Asia and Africa, which made them extremely expensive.
From the 8th 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. [6] 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. Spices that have now fallen into some obscurity in European cuisine include
grains of paradise, a relative of cardamom which almost entirely replaced pepper in late medieval
north French cooking, long pepper, mace, spikenard, galangal and cubeb. 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 new 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. This development 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

Handling spices

A spice may be available in several forms: fresh, whole dried, or pre-ground dried. Generally, spices
are dried. A whole dried spice has the longest shelf life so can be purchased and stored in larger
amounts, making it cheaper on a per-serving basis. Some spices are rarely available either fresh or
whole, for example turmeric, and must be purchased in ground form. Small seeds, such as fennel and
mustard seeds, are used both whole and in powder form.

The flavor of a spice is derived in part from compounds that oxidize or evaporate when exposed to air.
Grinding a spice greatly increases its surface area and so increases the rates of oxidation and
evaporation. Thus, flavor is maximized by storing a spice whole and grinding when needed. The shelf
life of a whole spice is roughly two years; of a ground spice roughly six months. The "flavor life" of a
ground spice can much shorter. Ground spices are better stored away from light.

To grind a whole spice, the classic tool is mortar and pestle. Less labor-intensive tools are more
common now: a microplane or fine grater can be used to grind small amounts; a coffee grinder is
useful for larger amounts. A frequently used spice such as black pepper may merit storage in its own
hand grinder or mill.

Some flavor elements in spices are soluble in water; many are soluble in oil or fat. As a general rule,
the flavors from a spice take time to infuse into the food so spices are added early in preparation.
Production
Production in tonnes. Figures 2003-2004
Researched by FAOSTAT (FAO)
 India 1 600 000 86 %

 China 99 000 5 %

 Bangladesh 48 000 3 %

 Pakistan 45 300 2 %

 Nepal 15 500 1 %

Other countries 60 900 3 %

Total 1 868 700 100 %

List of Indian spices

Below is a list of spices and other flavoring substances commonly used in India

Indian Common Name (All these

are Hindi names but written in English Name Comments
English).

Used as fresh and also Dried Powder form, see

Adrak Ginger
"Sonth"

Aamchur/Amchoor powder Sour Mango powder gives fish curries tartness

Achar Indian Pickle 100s of varieties exist. All are interesting.

Celery / Radhuni
Ajmud
seed

Ajwain Carom seed

Amla Indian gooseberry

Anardana Pomegranate seed Dried not fresh. Is ground in Middle East.

Bazil / Basil spice powder

Badam Almond

Choti Elaichi Green cardamom Malabar variety is native to Kerala.

Badi Elaichi Black cardamom Very earthy and darkly aromatic.

Chakra Phool Star anise Exotic, chinese influenced flavors

Chironji Charoli a type of nut particularly used in making desserts

Camiki Mango extract

Grown commercially in Kerala in southern India. Two

Dalchini Cinnamon
types, cassia (common) and royal.

Dhania Coriander seed

Blend of 8+ spices. Each family has her own secret

Garam Masala Spice mixture
recipe.

Gulab Jal Rose water Flavors desserts. Heavily used in Middle East.

Unrefined Sugar
Gur from the sap of the sugarcane or date palm
(Jaggery)

Haldi Turmeric Source of "yellow color" in many curries.

Hari dhaniya Coriandergreen Fresh green leaves. AKA Cilantro.

Harad / hime Terminalia chebula

Hari Mirch Green Chili

Dhania powder/ Pisa Dhania Coriander powder

Hing Asafoetida Intensely aromatic - related to Truffle and Garlic

Imli Tamarind Provides tartness in South Indian curries

Jaiphal Nutmeg Whole nuts last forever. Powder, only a month.

Javitri Mace Mace is outer covering to nutmeg nut. Similar aroma.

Jeera Cumin seed See Kali Jeera.

Cumin seed
Jeera Goli
grounded into balls
Jethimadh Licorice powder

Kachra Capers also known as Kabra, Karer in Hindi

Curry Tree or Sweet

Kadipatta Cannot retain flavor when dried. Only use fresh.
Neem leaf

Kaju Cashewnut

Kala Namak / Sanchal Black salt Rock salt, but with very sulfury smell.

Kali Elaichi Black Cardamom Earthy, much used in North Indian curries.

Largest producer is the southern Indian state of

Kali Mirchi Black pepper
Kerala.

Kalonji Nigella seed

Kasoori Methi Dried Fenugreek leaf menthi aakulu,

Katira Goond Tragacanth Gum A thickener and coating for desserts

Kebab Cheeni Allspice Tastes of Clove + cinnamon + nutmeg + bayleaf

Kesar, Zaafraan Saffron World's most expensive spice. Flavoring for rice.

Kesar miri miri Saffron pulp Actually, safflower concentrate

Khajur Dates

Kokum Garcinia indica

Khus Khus Poppy seed

Garcinia gummi-
Kudampuli Used in fish preparations of Kerala
gutta

Lahsun Garlic

Lal Mirchi Red Chilli

Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka are largest

Lavang Cloves
producers in India.

Kali Mirch Peppercorns

Methi leaves Fenugreek leaf

Methi seeds Fenugreek seed

Naaga Keshar

Namak Salt

Nimbu Lemon / Lime

Pudina Mint

Pyaz / Ganda Onion

This is a Bengali spice mix that combines aniseed,

Panch Phoron
cumin, fenugreek, mustard and nigella

Pathar Ka Phool Black Stone Flower

Pippali Long pepper

Peeli Mirchi Yellow Pepper

Rai Black Mustard Seed

Ratin jot Alkanet root

Safed Mirchi White Pepper

Saji na phool Citric acid

Sarson mustard seed

Sarson Tel Mustard oil

Saunf/Sanchal Fennel seed

Shahi Jeera Caraway Seeds smaller in size than regular

Sirka Vinegar

Soa sag Dill

Sonth Dried ginger mostly powdered

Suwa or Shopa Aniseed

Both Malabathrum and Bay Leaf are similar and

Malabathrum, Bay
Tej Patta called as Tej Patta in Hindi. however, they are from
Leaf
two different families with difference in taste
Til Sesame seed

Shimla Mirch Capsicum

Kali Zeera Black Cumin Aroma between cumin and diesel fuel

Tulsi Holy Basil