Stories behind 4 ancient Indian spices that are still popular

Did you know we have been eating some types of foods for hundreds of years now? Today we will look at 4 spices that are native to India, i.e. they were first cultivated and used in India.  

Black pepper or kali mirch 
We are so used to black pepper on the breakfast table and kitchen that we don’t even think of it as a spice. Kerala happens to be one of the major growers of this crop today, but more interestingly, that’s where the earliest traces of cultivation were found too. Ancient Indians traded it with Romans and Egyptians. In fact, it is a ‘hot’ export item of our country still!  

Cardamom or elaichi  
Thousands of years ago, Indian sailors and traders started elaichi export. Cardamom originated as a wild plant growing in the Western Ghat Hills. These hills are in Kerala and are called Yela Mala or Cardamom Hills. There is evidence that Egyptians had bought cardamom from us, used it in medicines, in holy rituals, to embalm mummies and even chewed it as a mouth freshener – 4000 years ago!  Vikings discovered cardamom when they met Indian sailors. Greeks, Romans, Arabs and other European tribes got it in turn from the Vikings.  

Cinnamon or dalchini  
Cinnamon are of many types. Ceylon Cinnamon or the ‘true’ cinnamon, is a native of Sri Lanka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Bangladesh and Myanmar. While Indians started used dalchini quite early in cooking and in Ayurveda as a medicine, the Egyptians used this spice to in the famous mummy preserving mix. Romans paid a lot for it, so it was a royal gift among them, and only noble Romans got to use dalchini. They also used it in funeral pyres.  

Turmeric or Haldi or Saffron 
Turmeric, the ‘golden spice’ or haldi is indispensible in Indian cooking. It is part of the curcuma family of plants, and 40 to 45 sub species of this group was found in India alone. While the origin of many of these plants are not clear, curcuma longa or haldi started its journey from India. It spread to Southeast Asia with Buddhist and Hindu monks who used turmeric to dye their robes.