The Magic of Cloves For Healing and Cooking

Book excerpt: The Magic of Cloves For Healing and Cooking Table of Contents Introduction How to Grow Cloves Growing from Seeds Time for Germinating Transplanting Your Seedlings Water Water Everywhere and Not a Drop to Drink… When Do You Get the Flowers and the Seeds? When Do You Harvest Them? Can You Grow Clove Plants from Cuttings? Clove Pomander Clove Oil Cloves in Ancient Remedies Cloves as Insect Repellent Suffering from Diarrhea? Not Feeling Hungry? Chest Congestion Throat Infections Healing Cuts and Bruises Clove – Cinnamon Ointment Cloves in Making Masalas Garam Masala Lamb Roast with Cloves Dal Fry Anyone for Tempering? Conclusion Winter oil Introduction I remember my father recounting a traditional and ancient Persian poem to me, which he had learned when his grandmother was busy cooking in the kitchen. She was just following ancient traditions, when women from the Mogul times – 14th-century – sang this song for fun in the kitchen, while cooking and amusing their kids at the same time. The translation from the vernacular goes something like this – Clove and cardamom – good pals they Went for a forbidden swim for kicks. And soon we heard Clove yelling. “Golly, cardamom has gone for a six ”. ¬ and so on, in more hilarious verses, about how clove would and could not bother to drag the drowning cardamom out of the water, because he would get wet, catch a cold, his momma had told him not to go swimming, and so on! Until cardamom came out of the water and both went home. Home, meaning the tummy of a gourmet who would appreciate the presence of cloves and cardamom in his delicately seasoned dish. The Association of cloves and cardamoms have been a part of the lives of spices in the East. Where you put in a couple of ground cloves, you may be asked whether you want to add some more cardamoms in, too. Most often, you say yes, because after all that is going to increase the taste quotient. Cloves also go well with cinnamon, star anise, basil and pepper. Nevertheless, this book is going to tell you all about the magic of cloves, which has been considered to be one of the most precious spices treasured down the centuries by the West. Wars were fought for cardamoms, cinnamon, pepper and cloves. Trade routes to the Indies, and to the East were jealously guarded by adventurous traders in the West. Cloves first originated in Indonesia from where traders took them all over the world, in ancient times. In fact, 3000 years ago, a Chinese emperor asked his courtiers to chew ding xiang in order to keep their breath fresh, when they came into his presence. Apart from its use in medicine, it was, and is also used extensively to add taste, sweetness, and warmth to a dish. Archaeologists have found traces of cloves in archaeological excavations going back to 1721 BC in Syria. So this shows how long this great and precious spice has been associated with mankind.