Spices – MASS COMMODITIES

Cloves

socita — Thu, 16 Dec 2021 14:28:27 +0000

The Clove tree originates from the Moluccas archipelago. Charred kitchen remains containing cloves have been found in Syria and are dated to around 1,700 BCE. The attestation of their use by Ayurvedic medicine is almost as old. Pliny the Elder alludes to a pepper-like spice called garyophyllon, which is traded for its fragrance. However, there is no evidence that it is cloves. The first mention of its presence in Europe dates from the 4th century, when Emperor Constantine I made a gift of it to Saint Sylvester, then bishop of Rome (pope).

During the Middle Ages, the Arabs ensured the clove trade without knowing its exact origin (which the Persian geographer of the 9th century Ibn Khurdadhbih located in Java). Portuguese navigators discovered the Moluccas in 1511, then were driven out by the Dutch a century later. Anxious to maintain a commercial monopoly on the precious spice, the latter eradicated it from all the islands except Amboyna and Ternate, and systematically burned their surplus production.

It was the Frenchman Pierre Poivre who put an end to the monopoly of the Dutch East India Company in the 18th century by introducing clove trees to Mauritius, then to Guyana.

In 1812, the Omani Saleh ben Haramil al Bray introduced cloves to Zanzibar. The sultan of the archipelago will employ between 1830 and 1872 nearly 7000 slaves in the exploitation of the spice.

Black Pepper

socita — Thu, 16 Dec 2021 14:27:15 +0000

Black pepper (Piper nigrum) is a flowering vine in the family Piperaceae, cultivated for its fruit, known as a peppercorn, which is usually dried and used as a spice and seasoning. The fruit is drupe (stonefruit) which is about 5 mm (0.20 in) in diameter (fresh and fully mature), dark red, and contains a stone which encloses a single pepper seed. Peppercorns and the ground pepper derived from them may be described simply as pepper, or more precisely as black pepper (cooked and dried unripe fruit), green pepper (dried unripe fruit), or white pepper (ripe fruit seeds). Black pepper is native to the Malabar Coast of India, and the Malabar pepper is extensively cultivated there and in other tropical regions. Ground, dried, and cooked peppercorns have been used since antiquity, both for flavour and as a traditional medicine. Black pepper is the world's most traded spice, and is one of the most common spices added to cuisines around the world. Its spiciness is due to the chemical compound piperine, which is a different kind of spicy from the capsaicin characteristic of chili peppers. It is ubiquitous in the Western world as a seasoning, and is often paired with salt and available on dining tables in shakers or mills.

Cocoa Beans

socita — Wed, 25 Aug 2021 12:52:49 +0000

The cacao tree is native to the Amazon rainforest. It was first domesticated 5,300 years ago, in equatorial South America, before being introduced in Central America by the Olmecs (Mexico). More than 4,000 years ago, it was consumed by pre-Hispanic cultures along the Yucatán, including the Maya, and as far back as Olmeca civilization in spiritual ceremonies. It also grows in the foothills of the Andes in the Amazon and Orinoco basins of South America, in Colombia and Venezuela. Wild cacao still grows there. Its range may have been larger in the past; evidence of its wild range may be obscured by cultivation of the tree in these areas since long before the Spanish arrived.