Why Spices are Important

These days certain spices have become so ubiquitous at our tables that we hardly think of them as spices at all... Black pepper is the obvious example here, but I'd include chillies in the form of sauces and pastes as well. Just think of the salt and pepper cellars on just about each and every table and the chilli-based condiments that are everywhere. Also, look at any recipe on the web and if they're for a savoury dish I guarantee you that well over 90% will have 'season with salt and Pepper "somewhere in the preparation.

Today, black pepper is also cheap and plentiful and it is difficult for us, even for a moment, Pepper was an incredibly rare and expensive commodity considered. But until recently (and even during the Second World War in Europe), black pepper was expensive and rare. It was produced only in India and found his way to Europe by strange and mysterious means.

The first report on the use of black pepper in Europe and North Africa was in theGrave of Pharaoh Ramses II, who had spent two peppercorns in the nostrils, as he mummified (and) some 4000 years ago. But the first western nations, black pepper and use extensively were the Greeks, and led them to love this spice to the Romans. As a result of the Romans, the first Europeans (who travel to India in search of this magical substance was, of course, had been Indian traders in the other direction for centuries!).

In many ways, black pepper is the perfect spice tothat the "warmth" and "sharpness" that raise the taste of a dish, but brings with it no trace of bitterness. Therefore there is any and all food an "Oomph" in terms of taste, without it unfit for human consumption (for this reason the Romans also put pepper in their desserts!).

But what exactly is a spice? In terms of a modern definition is a spice, usually get from the dried fruiting bodies of a plant. Thus the whole fruit can (as in Cubeb pepper or allspice or cumin), oris the core of the fruit or seeds (as in nutmeg and fenugreek and nigella seeds). In contrast, herbs are) (the vegetative parts of the plant stems and leaves and include lemongrass (tribes), thyme (leaves), oregano) (leaves. Spices are also from the roots, rhizomes or tubers derived from plants. Thus, ginger (and its relatives, galanga, zedoary etc) are spices, like the medieval spice, galangal (the root of a sedge,) is a grass-like plants.

Man is among the animals in strange that weFocus, as do in our food and many, many spices, or we have workers tend to this note in their tastes. This in turn has to use ourselves as a species, a variety of spices in our kitchen, and many of these spices, led in some way echo the distinctive nature of black pepper.

Therefore, the chilli, if in Europe from the North and South America was introduced to link called the "Chili" (to) it with black pepper. In fact, give the vast majority of Spices "heat" on a dish, and only verySome are purely used for their aromatic properties. Chili is widely used because it is pure "heat" conveys a court, but it lacks the pungency of black pepper, chili, and therefore, although very widely used today are still not crowded, black pepper, as the king of spices .

Most of our common and not so common herbs have imitated an edge, the black pepper in one way or another. But all of them convey a bitterness to the food they taste. Good examples are cubebPepper (often in the Middle Ages) and Senegal pepper (black pepper was used as a substitute during the Second World War). They provide both sharpness to justice, but if more used they also convey an unpleasant bitterness, and therefore they never really made with black pepper as flavorings.

In our desire after adding that extra 'pep' to our food people have scoured all corners of the world, and we have tried, and has some very strange things that our courts(Sichuan pepper, loved by the Chinese cuisine is a relative of the orange!). But nothing has the dominance of black pepper to compete in the kitchen. Approach is the only spice chili.

This means that our love of black pepper many local spices, which we used to use in the past has displaced, and it also means that we ignore many taste sensations that could be made sense back in our kitchen. Maybe it's time to rediscover some of these lost spices from around the world tore-gain lost some of our culinary heritage.