the.com/cardamom
the spice so expensive it's basically saffron's cocky younger sibling who got into Scandinavian baking.
means An aromatic spice made from the seed pods of plants in the ginger family, used whole or ground to lend a warm, citrusy, faintly camphorous flavor to both sweet and savory dishes.
from From Latin cardamomum, which Roman cooks borrowed from Greek kardamomon — a fusion of kardamon (a kind of cress) and amomon (an Indian spice plant). The plant itself is native to the forests of southern India and Sri Lanka, and the word traveled the spice routes westward right alongside the pods, picking up its Greek-flavored name along the way.
- price rank
- Third costliest spice, after saffron and vanilla
- hand harvest
- Each pod is picked by hand, unripe
- viking habit
- Scandinavians eat it far more than Indians do
- gum origin
- Its flavor inspired early chewing gum recipes
- coffee trick
- Bedouins crush it into coffee for hospitality
kerala cardamom — india produces 70% of world's cardamom, mainly from idukki district
guatemala cardamom — second largest producer after india, supplies 20% of global cardamom since 1970s
cardamom hills — mountain range in kerala, india where cardamom has been cultivated for centuries