The "Spice Up Your Life & Give Herb A Try" Story

It was an ordinary day.  Talking with my wife about the upcoming holidays and all the meals she was going to have to prepare for family and guests.  Luckily she only has to prepare one Thanksgiving meal since we will be visiting relatives on Thanksgiving Day.  On the Saturday after Thanksgiving we will once again have a big turkey dinner.  The Saturday dinner is a big chore for Carol since she has to prepare two large turkeys along with stuffing and a few other vegetables.  We then have to transport the meal to a relative's home who will host the dinner.  Then again, on Christmas Day, she again has to prepare dinner for about a dozen guests by preparing ham, scalloped potatoes, pumpkin bread, etc.  At times it can be overwhelming even though she enjoys to cook.  And, she is a fantastic chef making some of the best meals as well as desserts.  To do so, she turns to quite a few different spices and herbs to add to the flavoring and aroma of the meals.  These spices and herbs are the topic of my story today.  Herbs are almost always the leafy part of a plant.  The leaves can be cut up or used whole, as with bay leaves.  Most herbs are grown in temperate climates where it doesn't get too cold or too hot.  Throughout history spices were so important that they were used as money.  

Pepper in a grinder unit

About 1,000 years ago people used black peppercorns, which today are used to make black pepper, to pay rent, ransoms and taxes.  Columbus, during his explorations to the new world, was told to see if he could find a source for different spices.  Two of the most valuable spices used centuries ago were cinnamon and  the "King of Spices", black pepper.  Today spices are still grown, harvested and dried by hand, much as they were for hundreds of years.  The grinding and processing of spices is easier today due to modern technology, but the growing is still the same as it was years ago.  A few favorite spices that Carol uses are cinnamon, vanilla, nutmeg and pepper.  Cinnamon comes from the bark of the Cinnamon tree.  There are several varieties of this tree and each produces a different flavor.  The cinnamon tree that grows in Vietnam has more than twice as much fragrant oil as other cinnamon trees.  

The vanilla bean

It is the extra oil that makes it more spicy.  It comes in stick or powder form.  Nutmeg, as well as a similar spice, mace, both come from the fruit of the same tree; Myristica fragrant.  Mace comes from the red covering on the shell that protects the seed while the nutmeg comes from the seed itself.  Vanilla comes from the beans of an orchid vine.  It grows wild in parts of Mexico and Central America.  The beans must be dried in the sun until they are dark brown.  Each night for three months, workers wrap the beans and take them inside, then unwrap them and take them back outside in the morning.  Does that give you an idea why vanilla is so expensive?  Black peppercorns grow on Piper nigrum vines.  Most black pepper comes from India, Indonesia, Vietnam and Brazil.  Farmers climb ladders to hand-pick pepper spikes, or ears, full of berries, or peppercorns.  They spread the berries so they can dry in the sun.  They then turn the berries several times so they dry evenly.  At night they take the berries inside to protect them from moisture, then take them back outside every morning for seven to 10 days.  The herb, oregano, comes from plants in the mint family.  Oregano is used frequently to make pizza.  Another herb that Carol uses from time to time is Sage which comes from the leaves of a shrub that is also related to mint.  It grows in the U.S., Albania, Montenegro, Bosnia and Serbia.  There are many other herbs and spices that can be used for many different dishes and without those spices the meals might be bland.  So, no matter what you use to prepare you holiday meals, enjoy the meals with family and friends and try tp spice up your life a bit!  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.