Understanding Spice

Unassuming pips and dusts in little glass jars, it is easy to forget the journey spices have gone on both literally and figuratively. Your flavourings started life in a tangled jungle or mountain plain, perhaps on the other side of the Earth from where you are now, where they were nurtured by tropical sun and the seasonal rhythms of the monsoon. They may be the seeds of plants destined to create new life, the stamen of a flower harvested by hand at sunrise, or the dried bark of a fragrant tree. Like most of the food we eat, spices come from living things and that is what gives them their variety and depth.