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Dangerous tastes
Fayza Hassan Published in Al-Ahram Weekly on 03 - 01 - 2002


Fayza Hassan samples the spices of life
The young woman sat sipping from a glass filled with an amber colour liquid, her pale face slowly turning to pink. "I feel better already," she said. She had been Christmas shopping and had felt the first symptoms of a cold descending upon her. "What are you drinking," I asked. "Fresh ginger, do you want some?" I was handed a scalding glass of the golden infusion. I immediately recognised the taste. This was the stuff that made Chinese misu soup (ginger broth to which small bits of tofu are added) so peppery. A couple of sips later, I felt warm all over and comfortable enough to remove my coat. It was lovely. "How do you make it", I wanted to know. " Chop a piece of fresh ginger root and boil it for a few minutes, voilà," she said laughing, "it is no witch's brew."
Later I discovered that she used spices to prepare various tisanes for every occasions, added them lavishly to her festive dishes, besides mixing some in her secret incense preparation which she burnt to perfume her house. Spices, she said, made her feel in tune with the universe.
"But," she warned, "although spices can seduce you with their colours and perfume, caressing or inflaming your palate, only a dozen or so merit the name of sovereign. The others are difficult to use and remain generally the preserve of a few chefs who have learned their secrets."
I could not wait to learn more. Bookstores had a decent array of books on spices and their exiting history, on the dangers travellers braved to bring them back from faraway lands and with a bagful of beautifully illustrated volumes I settled down to bask mentally in the wonderful aroma before I ventured on a trip to the spice market in Khan Al-Khalili. No longer did I want to use the bottled supermarket ready-made spices. From now on only fresh condiments will enter my house.
Combination of words like 'the bark of paradise' and 'cinnamon gardens' immediately caught my imagination I could almost transport myself to the island of Sri Lanka as described by Alain Stella in The Book of Spices (Flammarion, 1999) and where "between the monsoons, this splendid island, so rich in artistic traditions and in the scent of flowers, spices and tea, is caressed by a heavenly breeze which blows through the cinnamon gardens concentrated in the southern portion of the island, on the sunny lowlands around Galles and Colombo." Cardamom, which only deserved the mention "valuable seed" seemed a bit more pedestrian, although the fact that there were cardamom mountains in south-west India could figure honourably in anyone's spicy dream. Clove on the other hand is the perfume of Indonesia, it is said, but it is also known as an effective remedy for toothache.
The Book Of Spices titles the following chapter "Cumin and Caraway: a sun for each hemisphere" and although I have known these two spices either as a delicious condiment for potato soup or alternatively in an infusion to relieve newborn babies' collic, I was quite prepared to be moved by words such as "From Morocco to India, cumin, the queen of spices in the Eastern Mediterranean, loves to soak up the sun." Caraway on the other hand hails from the Netherlands and Central Europe as well as from some regions of India and thrives on the cold sun of the north. It is most appreciated in Danish cheese and Jamaica cake.
Ginger however, dubbed the root of pleasure seemed to win the day. Apparently a decoction of crushed tea leaves and ginger root is a very ancient delicacy among the Chinese. Ginger's origins are Asian. For a long time, it enjoyed the reputation of being an aphrodisiac. "Around the 12th century, Arab and Jewish scholars at the prestigious Italian school of medicine at Salerno, were all in agreement on this property, summed up in the following quatrain:
Over a cold in the stomach, kidney or lung
Fiery Ginger always has the upper hand
Quenching the thirst, it enlivens and excites the brain
While in old age it awakens a youthful new-found love."
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