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The show that explores what makes Sri Lanka Sri Lankan.
The Taste Trade: A Journey Around Sri Lanka’s Merchant Spices
Few people ever packed light as they headed to Sri Lanka. But what are the spices that arrived in the carry-on baggage its visiting traders, travellers and superpowers?
On the distant streets of the Old Bailey in London stands F. W. Pomeroy's famous 1906 statue of Justice hanging above the entrance to Central Criminal Court. The vast and gilded Amazonian holds in one hand the sword of justice and in the other the finely balanced scales of justice. And it is in thinking how Sri Lanka’s spice history might best fit into these scales that this distant statue comes to mind.
On one side of the scales, you might imagine the enticing black and red gold of the island’s indigenous pepper and cinnamon. These were the spices that drew in European colonists, enabling them to make untold profits and to establish their sprawling foreign empires more effectively. And on the other side of the scales are those spices – such as chilli, nutmeg, and vanilla - that the Europeans introduced to the island.
It is, of course, an invidious comparison. Imperial apologists would want to throw in all sorts of other things from railways to constitutions, tea to telephones. Nationalists would meet each opening with equal or better examples to prove the opposite. It is a bill that remains in pyretic calculation. But for foodies and spice enthusiasts, what remains, even before the cost is reckoned, is the exuberant existence of the spices themselves, however they arrived.
Remarkably, though, it was Arab traders, not European colonists, who made the most significant impact on the island’s spice heritage – if measured in terms of variety, range, and application. For it was through them that the final nine or so other spices so critical to the country’s character first arrived: cloves, cardamom, coriander, cumin, fenugreek, pandam leaves, fennel, tamarind, and ginger. For these traders, working the ports of the Indian Ocean from Africa to Indonesia, they filled what was empty and emptied what was filled.
“Run, run as fast as you can! You can't catch me. I'm the Gingerbread Man!” And nor can you, for there is nothing to touch the taste of ginger. Known in more formal circles as Zingiber Officinale, it is a cultigen - one of those rare species that has been so altered by mankind as to no longer exist in its original wild state.
Originating from the rainforest islands of Southeast Asia, it has been modified to fit human culinary and medicinal needs. It probably arrived in Sri Lanka with Arab traders, but its travel schedule is so ancient as to be all but lost. The Rig Veda, which dates to around 1400 BCE and is the world’s oldest Vedic text, mentions ginger, and later ayurvedic books elaborate on its medicinal qualities - to reduce indigestion and nausea, stimulate the respiratory and nervous system, and, by improving blood circulation, act as an aphrodisiac. Recent scientific studies that have tabulated sexual function, fertility, and testosterone levels suggest that there may be something in this. Western science has also set in train a wave of further forensic research into the clinical applications of ginger in cancer control, menstrual pain, glucose levels, and the treatment of arthritis.
It is an easy plant to grow, demanding dappled shade, well-drained soil, and high humidity. Rhizomes with green growth buds are planted in shallow depressions, and before long, green leaves, sometimes up to ten feet high, spread out, accompanied by pink or white flowers so perfect in their construction as to look as if they have sprung from moulds. Within eight months, the roots can be harvested and the process restarted.
Our own ginger, grown with a carefully defensive mindset to ward off attacks by rampaging wild boar, lives in stone beds in the Spice Garden. At $10 billion and growing, the global market for ginger outstrips production, so prices are higher than they need to be. The culinary form of ginger has two main variants: white ginger, available in large or small sizes, with the smaller variant preferred for cooking; and red ginger, preferred for medicinal use. All these variants have sub-variants with scores. The pale yellow flesh of Chinese ginger, for example, is chosen for pickles; Rangoon Ginger for oils and perfumes; and Indian ginger, like the tiny amount of ginger grown in Sri Lanka, is most favoured in cooking and drinks for its much stronger taste. Its sweet, citrusy flavour, as well as its peppery heat, changes during preparation. When raw, it is at its most pungent; when dried, it is at its hottest; and when cooked, it is at its sweetest.
From ginger cakes and ginger beer to stir-fry ginger beef, it is used in many dishes across the world, but perhaps none so celebrated as with Gingerbread men. England’s first Queen Elizabeth even had an official royal gingerbread maker whose sole role was to make such pastries, once famously creating edible clones of all the foreign dignitaries who assembled at her 16th-century court. In Sri Lanka, it is especially favoured in chicken and sambal dishes.
Older even than Harry Potter’s Dumbledore, Tamarind, native to Africa, has been growing in India and, probably, Sri Lanka since at least 1300 BCE, roughly the same time as the civilisations of the late Bronze Age around the Mediterranean collapsed. It has godly properties, being included in the Book of Enoch, one of those texts that was banned from inclusion in the Bible; and in the Hindu Epic, the Ramayana, a text that Hindus believe dates back 1.2 million years, though scholars argue for a later date - around 5,000 BCE. Indeed, it was old enough to be included in some of the earliest Indian Ayurvedic texts – the Charaka Samhita, the Sushruta Samhita, and the Nighantus. Its very name appears to hint at its travel history: "tamarind" is derived from the Arabic phrase “tamar hindi,” which means "Indian date." Commonly added to ayurvedic medicines to treat constipation, digestive disorders, arthritis, blood disorders, wounds, and cell health, it is now undergoing deeper scientific studies for its pharmacological properties, helping with asthma, liver problems, diabetes, and dysentery.
Tamarind’s primary compound, tartaric acid, is what gives it its sour flavour – this characteristic being the reason it is so liked in Thai and Indian dishes for the gentle and complex layer of acidity it adds to curries, soups, stews, chutneys, sauces, as well as in desserts, and drinks. It pops up in Massaman, Rassam, and Pad Tha; in tamarind jam in Costa Rica; in tamarind beer in the Bahamas; and, since 1876, in England’s legendary Lea & Perrins’ Worcestershire sauce. In Sri Lanka, it is most widely used in curries made with fish, chicken, and pork. It grows as a long-lived evergreen tree, reaching heights of 80 feet in good sun and well able to withstand droughts. Lightly covered with pinnate leaves, its modest red and yellow flowers develop into hard, six-inch knobbly pods, the flesh within them being the best part of the tree to use.
Its cousin, in bitterness at least, is fenugreek, a plant which, though originating in Turkey six thousand years ago, became so widespread as to appear with residential ease in the texts, medicines and recipes of the first Mesopotamian and Indian civilisations, as well as those of ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome. Use it, advised the Egyptian Ebers Papyrus in 1550 BCE, to embalm the dead, purify the air, and cleanse the tummy. A central component of Ayurveda and traditional Chinese medicine, it was regarded with great suspicion by Western medicine – until recently. It is now enjoying an investigative renaissance as labourites around the world probe its antidiabetic, anti-obesity, anticancer, anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, antifungal, and antibacterial properties. The plant, an annual, grows to a bushy two feet in height, happiest in full sun and is well able to tolerate drought. Its celery-tasting leaves are often used in curries and salads. Still, its seeds are most commonly used, giving dishes a nutty, maple-like taste with hints of curry, as in Aloo Methi, the Indian potato curry, or Persian Sabzi stews. In Sri Lanka, its seeds are especially enjoyed when combined with a few onions, chilli, garlic cloves, tamarind, and plenty of thick coconut milk to make a simple vegetarian curry.
Fennel, which is not in any way related to fenugreek, is more closely associated with carrots than with fenugreek. It is a staple ingredient in the Sri Lankan kitchen, prized for its sweet, liquorice-like flavour, the Paddington Bear of the spice world, easy to grow from seeds in full sun, its base bulb ready to harvest after just three months. It is prone to gluttonous slugs and insects, and so grows in The Flame Tree Estate & Hotel with the sort of protection a junior Vice President might receive. Native to the Mediterranean, the plant was widely known across the ancient civilisations of the region and travelled swiftly and almost unnoticed to Asia and beyond – including Sri Lanka, one of the many discreet gifts of the Indian Ocean trade. Its sweet, grassy taste is often incorporated into many Sri Lankan dishes, from curries to Watalappan. It is a component of many traditional medicines used to relieve colds and digestive problems. Modern science seems to validate this, with studies showing how one of its main compounds, anethole, helps relieve stomach ailments. And perhaps more interestingly, further research indicates it can also help prevent liver disease.
“So the gingerbread was made in the shape of hearts, and the finest was stuck with almonds and cardamom, by the Duchess's own hand,” wrote Joseph Victor von Scheffel in his fantasy Tale of the Tenth Century. And the duchess would know. Cardamon, the green pearl or Queen of Spices from India’s Western Ghats, is so prized as to be the world’s third most valued spice, up there with saffron and vanilla, with a scent and flavour so intensely exotic as to be deeply associated with magic potions, love remedies and spiritual practices that go back to the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. It has a taste and fragrance like no other spice. The oils derived from its seeds undergo many stages of olfactory change as they are heated. Words like peppery, piney, eucalyptus, menthol, citrus, sweet, peppery, pungent, aromatic – they all land far short of quite how extraordinary it is. Unique as it is, its bioactive properties have long made it a key ingredient in many ancient medical systems, from Ayurveda to the Chinese Compendium of Materia Medica. Modern science is busy validating its benefits in combating diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, and disorders of the respiratory and gastrointestinal systems. It is even beginning to show promise in preventing some cancers. In Scandinavia, it has transformed a range of basic foods from mulled wines to pastries, raising them to addictive levels of gourmand refinement. Poached fruits, pies, cupcakes, biriyanis, biscuits, teas, dhals, scones and stews: there is little that will not yield to and be improved by the spice. Arriving in Sri Lanka, courtesy of Arab traders working the sea routes to the Malabar coast, is the likely reason it arrived here, where it is used in cakes and curries, puddings, and rice. It comes in two basic variants – Green cardamom, which has a very intense flavour, and Black cardamom, which is cooler and smokier. The green variety, known scientifically as Elettaria, is the true cardamom. Black cardoon comes from a quite different species – the Amomum plant, which grows on the slopes of the Himalayas.
Green cardamom grows best in deep shade in wet, hilly, tropical or sub-tropical areas with plenty of rainfall. Reaching bushy heights of up to 15 feet, it takes three years before it starts bearing seeds that can be harvested. Over this time, it requires a lot of protection, as monkeys, if our own cardamom beds on the Flame Tree Estate & Hotel are anything to go by, seem to find it irresistibly attractive. The difficulties and time required to grow the spice help explain the focus of its production, with Guatemala and India accounting for the vast majority of the nearly one billion dollars it generates annually. Sri Lanka’s own production, centred mainly around Kandy, Matale, Kegalle, Nuwara Eliya, and Ratnapura, accounts for a tiny proportion of the total.
Three other spices, the Three C’s, are spices whose arrival in Sri Lanka can also probably be placed at the feet of early Arab traders. The trio are key fixtures of any fully functioning island kitchen: coriander, cloves and cumin.
You don’t have to be all cloved up to enjoy cloves, but the slightest whiff of the alluring spice is likely to leave you in the happiest and highest of spirits. Until relatively recently, the island’s source of cloves had been a matter of debate, with some historians pointing to the Portuguese and others to Arab traders. However, the discovery a few years ago of a pot containing cloves, excavated in the ancient port of Mathottam in the northwest of the island and dating back to 900-1100 CE, suggests that the clove trade was already well established long before the first European colonists arrived. Indeed, the only clove discovered anywhere else in the world that predates this one is one found in Syria, perfectly preserved since 2000 BCE. Interestingly, the Sri Lankan clove was not excavated in isolation. It was found alongside many other preserved cereals and grains and 11,418 pottery fragments from 123 different wares, a quarter of which were clearly imports - indicating that in this port, as no doubt in others, a dynamic and cosmopolitan settlement was in progress – like Dubai, only older and greener. Detailed research on the clove in question has since revealed that it came from the Maluku Islands in today’s Indonesia – a 7,000-kilometre journey.
But even before this date, the spice had long since spread around the world. Third-century BCE records from the Chinese Han dynasty refer to the spice as “hi-sho-hiang” or "bird’s tongue,” and recommend that the Emperor’s officers chew some before starting a conversation with their fastidious overlords. The Ayurvedic Charaka Samhita, dating back to the first century CE, also recommends it as a medicine, as did the Roman Pliny the Elder (23-79 CE). Pliny was to die with spectacular drama at Mount Vesuvius, for despite his rousing cry that "Fortune favours the brave,” the recuse attempt he led following the eruption ran into the toxic vapours of the volcanic cloud. Hopefully, as he struggled for breath, the taste of the delicious clove-laced Delian Sweets he would have enjoyed the night before was still refreshing his mouth.
It is probable that cloves grew as permanent features of ancient plantations in India and Sri Lanka and had already taken root well before the European colonists arrived, for the Portuguese and later the Dutch spent much time trying to uproot them, in an effort to enforce the monopoly they enjoyed with this spice from their control of its primary source in Indonesia.
Because they require high humidity to ensure proper development of the flower bud, good drainage, rich soil, and abundant rainfall, cloves are now grown mostly within 10 degrees north and south of the equator. Worth around seven billion dollars annually – and growing fast, almost half the production comes from Madagascar, with a little under ten per cent from Sri Lanka, especially from small plantations around Kandy, Kegalle, and Matale. Here, the climatic conditions are so beneficial that the cloves are renowned amongst buyers for their richer, more intense oils and flavour.
The trees themselves, Syzygium aromaticum, are slender and reach about 40 feet tall. It takes them over 6 years to grow before producing buds. But they then stick at the job for some eighty years, making clove orchards things of great value. Although they grow with relative ease and resist most animal attacks, they are challenging to manage, requiring careful, time-sensitive hand-harvesting to pick the buds at the optimal time. Once the leafy structure that encases a flower bud changes from green to pink, and just before the petals themselves open, is the time to pluck them. They then must be separated from their stalks and left to dry gently in the sun. Scores of old clove trees grow around The Flame Tree Estate & Hotel, and a new Clove Orchard has also been planted, with around six hundred adolescent plants, assiduously attended to by our gardeners.
Traditional Chinese and Ayurvedic medicine have long used the spice for pain relief, toothaches, digestion, colds, and gum infections, with its power mainly due to its high eugenol content. Modern science is busy reaffirming much of this. Recent studies have shown that it can reduce the SARS virus, combat oxidative stress to mitigate chronic diseases, including cancer, prevent bacterial infections, reduce rheumatoid arthritis pain, and be as effective as benzocaine in relieving tooth pain.
But it is as a food item that it is most cherished. From glazed hams to candied oranges, tea to biscuits, trifles to curries – there is an unending wealth of recipes from all corners of the world that use the spice. They have even made it the prize ingredient in Sykurlaus kryddkaka, the national cake of Iceland, and in Pickled Muktuk, a favoured Thanksgiving dish of whale blubber cooked in Alaska.
Unlike cloves, whose detractors are almost impossible to find, coriander is the Marmite of the spice world. You either love it or hate it - a predisposition that is said to be genetic. Its distinctive, pungent, spicy, citrus green taste and aroma are never in purdah in any dish. Trumpet-like, it blasts out in anything it touches and is not, therefore, something to add to recipes that like to sell themselves on the discreet and well-mannered progress they make across one’s taste buds.
Native to the Mediterranean and Middle East, and ancient beyond wrinkles, coriander first appears back in 5000 BCE in Sanskrit literature before popping up in the ancient Greek papyri and the Bible - Exodus 16:31, to be exact: “…and the house of Israel called the name thereof Manna: and it was like coriander seed, white; and the taste of it was like wafers made with honey.” The spice travelled with the Romans, Chinese, and Arabs on every possible trade route, spreading rapidly across the globe as ABBA. An annual, it grows absurdly easily from seeds – rather like the mustard and cress of kindergarten - and, led by India, has mushroomed into a $5 billion-a-year market.
Traditional medicines across the world include a wide range of treatments for most problems, from fever, diarrhoea, indigestion, and piles to vomiting, arthritis, and gout. Modern scientific research is a little pickier, but many studies have begun to show its value in treating disorders of the nervous system and diabetes, and in combating malignant microorganisms.
The more you cut it, the more it grows. In cooking, every part of coriander can be used – its intensely flavoured seeds, its grassy leaves and stalks, even its delicate white flowers, which pair very well with cheese. It appears in any number of curries from South to SE Asia, as well as – famously in Yemeni Zhug, Salsas, Tiger Salad, the carrot Potage de Crécy soup, Egyptian bissara dips, and, of course, Sri Lankan Kothamalli Tea – the go-to comfort drink that everyone sips on the island if feeling mildly out of sorts.
Cumin is the sort of spice that stays with you. Not unpleasantly like – say, a MAGA slogan, but more akin to a wise thought or insight. Nutty, warm, slightly bitter and, when toasted, very aromatic, it lingers on your palate, reminding you gladly of epicurean pleasures only just past. A prominent member of the parsley family, it appears to have rapidly spread from its home base around the Mediterranean to take over the entire world. Clocking up a value of almost two billion dollars annually, its production is led by India, with Sri Lanka producing barely enough for its own consumption. Traditional medicines use it for pain relief and digestive problems. Modern science has fixed on its principal compounds - thymoquinone and cuminaldehyde – to disentangle its likely abilities as an anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, anti-diabetic, and anti-cancer agent. As a cooking ingredient, it stars especially in Indian, Mexican, African, Mediterranean, and Middle Eastern dishes, and it is no stranger to ambitious chefs either, featuring in trophy dishes like Chocolate and Cumin Fudge, Golden Lassi, Hazelnut Butter, and traditional sausage rolls. In Sri Lanka, it is so loved that it forms a key ingredient in Thuna Paha, the top go-to island curry powder used in countless local recipes.
Pandam leaves are Asia’s secret spice, the Abracadabra of its spice world, able to magically transform dishes with a grassy green vanilla-like flavour that leaves adventurous Westerners wondering why on earth the big supermarket chains have yet to bring it on. Growing like a punk haircut to about three feet in height, pandam is known colloquially as screw pine for the spiralling arrangement of its leaves, not unlike a happy yucca. It is an agreeable plant to house, requiring little attention but for water and a splash of shade. Most Sri Lankan homes have a pot of it standing outside the kitchen. It hit the botanical headlines as late as 1813 when Scottish botanist William Roxburgh described it. His famous catalogue of Calcutta Royal Botanic Garden’s plant species noted that the plant had been donated in 1798 from the island of Ambon, in Indonesia. It is especially loved for desserts such as Thailand’s khanom thuai or Filipino Buko Pandan – not just for its sweet flavour but also for the shocking green colour it imparts. Nor is it a stranger to curries, soups, and salads. Home remedies incorporate it to treat headaches, joint pain, skin issues, and dandruff. Modern scientific research has been slow to catch up. It is only now beginning to demonstrate its ability to combat various chronic diseases, regulate glucose levels, and treat skin disorders. It is, however, a spice to put your money on. Investors are piling in, and the market, currently at just around $ 300 million, is said to double in just a few years.
And pandam leaves, private, obscure, indolent, enigmatic as they are, are all the same, the best of all species to end on. Wafting its secretive scent ahead of it, across the jaded appetites of our ever more urban world, it imparts, like all island spices, an abracadabra magic on all its touches, lifting, with such joy, the mundane taste and scent of life better than drugs or sunshine, holiday romances or being upgraded to First Class on an Etihad A380.
That was a production written and recorded by David Swarbrick at The Ceylon Press, based in the jungle north of Kandy, at The Flame Tree Estate & Hotel, and set up to tell the story of Sri Lanka.