Thursday, April 14, 2011 Meme - "SPICE"

I LOVE SPICES, HOW ABOUT YOU?

A spice is a dried seed, fruit, root, bark or vegatative substance used in nutritionally insignificant quantities as a food additive for flavor.comor, or as a preservative that kills harmful bacteria or prevents their growth. Flavoring may be to hide other flavors. In the kitchen, spices are distinguished from herbs, which are leafy, green plant parts used for flavoring.
Many spices are used for other purposes, such as medicine, religious rituals, cosmetics, perfumery or for eating as vegetables. For example, tumeric is also used as apreservative; liquorice as a medicine; garlic  as a vegetable.

Early history

Humans were using spices in 50,000 BC. The spice trade developed throughout the Middle East in around 2000 BC with cinnamon and pepper, and in East Asia (Korea, China) with herbs and pepper. The Egyptians used herbs for embalming and their need for exotic herbs helped stimulate world trade. The word spice comes from the Old French word "espice" which became "epice" and which came from the Latin root "spec", the noun referring to appearance, sort, kind ('Species' has the same root.) By 1000 BC, China, Korea and India had medical systems based upon herbs. Early uses were connected with magic, medicine, religion, tradition, and preservation.

Digs found a clove burnt onto the floor of a burned down kitchen in the Mesopotamian site of Terqa, in what is now modern-daySyria, 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, early 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. The Romans had cloves in the 1st century AD, as Pliny the Elder about them.  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 theMiddle 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 indispensable to balance "humors" in food, a daily basis for good health at a time of recurrent pandemic.

Spices were all imported from plantations in Asia and Africa, which made them 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 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.  The most exclusive was saffron, used as much for its vivid yellow-red color as for its flavor. Spices that have now fallen into obscurity in European cuisine include grains of paradise, a relative of cardamom which most replaced pepper in late medieval north French cooking, long pepper, mace, spikenard, galangal, and cubeb.

Early modern period

The control of trade routes and the spice-producing regions were the main reasons that Portuguese navigator Vasco do 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 here.

The military prowess of Afonso de Alburquerque (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 thePersian 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
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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 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 %