[Sca-cooks] black cardamom vs. green cardamom vs. something else

[James Prescott]

At 10:55 -0400 2003-04-29, <jenne at fiedlerfamily.net> wrote:
> Was discussing spices this weekend with someone and he said he was making
> an Indian dish that called for black cardamom. (I thought black cardamom
> was fully ripened cardamom, while green were the slightly immature
> cardamom pods, but he thought not.) Anyway, he bought something in the
> grocery which had a similar name to black cardamom, but stank awfully (it
> was black seeds of some kind.)
>
> Can anyone shed some light on this linguistic tangle?

The colour of the husk, pastel green versus dark brown, that contains
the seeds.  They are different species.

The actual small seeds for either kind are a darkish grey-brown-black.

The black is stronger, the green more delicate (and thus the green
is usually preferred for desserts or chai).


Thorvald