Sugar and Spice

Everything about India is hot. The women, the ocean, the masala chai tea, the weather and definitely the food. The diversity of spices and flavors found here are endless and ancient. India exported herbs, spices, indigo, ebony, exotic animals, fruits and pearls to the Romans in exchange for their gold and wine. While recently in the southern state of Kerala, my boyfriend and I got to see some of these famed spices growing naturally.

Here is a pepper (as in the counterpart to salt) vine. Yes, pepper grows on a vine!

 

One plant can produce four colors of pepper: black, white, green and red. It is in the preparation of the small, green pepper corns pictured that changes the color.  To produce black pepper you take the green, unripe pepper corns as is, boil them and then dry them in the sun or in a machine. The small pepper corns then shrivel up and turn into the black pepper we are used to seeing on the table. To get white pepper you take a ripe, red pepper corn, boil it, and remove the red fruit to produce a white seed. This seed is then dried and ready to use. For red or green pepper, you take the ripe or unripe pepper corns and preserve them in a brine. Pretty neat!

 

Above is a clove plant. The pale green, cross-shapes above are the buds. When they turn red, they are collected and dried in the same manner of the pepper plant.

In addition to the plethora of spices India has to offer, fresh fruit and fruit juices are in constant supply. You can get delicious, fresh juices at almost any restaurant and certainly any street corner. Below is a machine that produces fresh sugar cane juice.

 

He feeds the sugar cane into this huge press and out comes delicious juice. 

 

This is the most minimal post on the extensive flavors and spices I have found in India, but I just wanted to share a small peak into the culinary vacation my taste buds have been on.