[Sca-cooks] Grains of Paradise
Lilinah
lilinah at earthlink.net
Thu Dec 21 13:26:40 PST 2006
Renata wrote:
>I always thought GofP came form Africa, not Sumatra. I have no
>problem getting them - I just can't find what I did with the latest
>arrivals...;(
Well, since spices even today are often luxury items, many are now
grown far from there place of origin. Vanilla orchids, for example
originated in Mexico, but the best vanilla now comes from various
islands around the Pacific.
So while GoP are native to West Africa, i've no idea where else - if
anywhere else - they are now grown. Since they aren't used a great
deal in modern cuisines, except perhaps in West/Central Africa and
Samuel Adams beer - it seems to me that there's no great call to grow
them in other places. On the other hand, with what seems to me a
growing interest in unusual spices (after all, there are now gifty
packages of long peppers and grains of paradise sold at Whole Foods)
and so much unrest, if not downright violence, in Africa, perhaps
Samuel Adams will encourage the growing of GoP somewhere outside
West/Central Africa.
Oh, well, such sorry tales surround the spice trade.
But on a lighter dark note, Happy Winter Solstice to those on the
list in the Northern Hemisphere, and Happy Summer Solstice to those
in the Southern Hemisphere.
--
Urtatim (that's err-tah-TEEM)
the persona formerly known as Anahita
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