Tell me what you are interested in and I will translate the recipe, if he has it. It’s one of the best cookbooks I have owned. Not fancy but packed with knowledge.
What a fantastic essay. I could literally taste every recipe, because I know them. The memory of all the dishes literally awakens the Pavlovian taste buds.
If I happen to be in your geography or you in mine, allow me to make for you the exquisite Gujarati street chai- it is as much an ode to elaichi as it is to the entire spice box.
I’m thrilled that you mentioned black cardamom which is sometimes very difficult to find. I grew to love it during my time in China. All cardamom is amazing.
Thank you!! A fascinating analysis and history of one of my favorite spices! We include it every morning in our coffee… it is in our baqlawa and rice and other dishes.
The Cardamom Mountains fascinate me because the name itself carries the history - a spice landscape preserved in a place-name long after the trade routes shifted and the forests changed.
We tend to encounter cardamom as a jar on a shelf. The mountains remind us that it was a forest plant before it was a commodity, rooted in a specific ecology before it entered cuisine, trade, and cultural memory.
The more I research it, the less cardamom looks like a single ingredient and the more it resembles a map - stretching from Kerala to Ethiopia and across mainland Southeast Asia.
Which is exactly the problem.
Because not everything on that map is actually cardamom.
Korarima, grains of paradise, black cardamom - botanically they are cousins at best, strangers at worst. They acquired the name because traders needed a familiar word for an unfamiliar product, and the name outlasted the distinction.
That may be the next essay: not the story of cardamom, but the story of everything that borrowed its name.
I think i need a degree just to understand what you wrote. Wow you could compete with Eyal Shani elaborating on spices so pungent as a literary sage....Very long but totally emersed in hail which i used to drink in Indian Chai. Might try out fish recipe one day soon. Yum!
Another fantastic essay, up there with your essays on pepper and turmeric. The history of spices and the spice trade has fascinated me since I was a child. I am looking forward to your book someday.
Tell me what you are interested in and I will translate the recipe, if he has it. It’s one of the best cookbooks I have owned. Not fancy but packed with knowledge.
What a fantastic essay. I could literally taste every recipe, because I know them. The memory of all the dishes literally awakens the Pavlovian taste buds.
If I happen to be in your geography or you in mine, allow me to make for you the exquisite Gujarati street chai- it is as much an ode to elaichi as it is to the entire spice box.
The next essay in the series deals with this. I will be in touch. Thanx, Arjun.
I’m thrilled that you mentioned black cardamom which is sometimes very difficult to find. I grew to love it during my time in China. All cardamom is amazing.
Thank you!! A fascinating analysis and history of one of my favorite spices! We include it every morning in our coffee… it is in our baqlawa and rice and other dishes.
Exactly. The next essay will feature cardamom recipes
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardamom_Mountains?wprov=sfti1
Thank you for this.
The Cardamom Mountains fascinate me because the name itself carries the history - a spice landscape preserved in a place-name long after the trade routes shifted and the forests changed.
We tend to encounter cardamom as a jar on a shelf. The mountains remind us that it was a forest plant before it was a commodity, rooted in a specific ecology before it entered cuisine, trade, and cultural memory.
The more I research it, the less cardamom looks like a single ingredient and the more it resembles a map - stretching from Kerala to Ethiopia and across mainland Southeast Asia.
Which is exactly the problem.
Because not everything on that map is actually cardamom.
Korarima, grains of paradise, black cardamom - botanically they are cousins at best, strangers at worst. They acquired the name because traders needed a familiar word for an unfamiliar product, and the name outlasted the distinction.
That may be the next essay: not the story of cardamom, but the story of everything that borrowed its name.
I think i need a degree just to understand what you wrote. Wow you could compete with Eyal Shani elaborating on spices so pungent as a literary sage....Very long but totally emersed in hail which i used to drink in Indian Chai. Might try out fish recipe one day soon. Yum!
Hail to the chief
Another fantastic essay, up there with your essays on pepper and turmeric. The history of spices and the spice trade has fascinated me since I was a child. I am looking forward to your book someday.
Thank you! working on it (the book)... and wait for the next one; there is another essay coming about all the other cardamoms...
Elli. Can you please help me find Moshe David’s cookbook. I’m having no luck.
Oh, phooey! I don’t read Hebrew. 😆
I have it. It’s in Hebrew. Still interested?