van Wyk - Culinary Herbs & Spices of the World

Spices have become freely available today and form the basis of a grand new adventure a culinary exploration of the world, and a journey to discover new tastes and recipes from far corners of the earth. Some of us are fortunate enough to travel the world and experience the sights and sounds that go along with local food in various parts of the globe. But the Information Age allows even the most sedentary among us to enjoy the marvellous diversity of cuisines from around the world via the internet and the numerous food channels on television. We can all enrich our everyday lives by exploring new tastes and flavours and the many exotic products and recipes that have become part of our wonderful modern world.

From my own culinary and botanical perspective, the world can be roughly divided into seven major cuisine families: 1: Sub-Saharan Africa, where food is often considered rather bland by outsiders and where flavour was traditionally provided by the ingredients themselves rather than by herbs and spices. The traditional staple foods are yams ( fufu ) and cereals such as finger millet, pearl millet and sorghum, eaten in the form of porridges and gruels. 2: The Middle East, representing an early fusion of Eastern and Western cooking traditions, and the origin of many present-day European culinary practices. No wonder, this is after all the place of origin of bread wheat and bread. 3: South Asia (India and surrounding countries), where people eat food by hand (normally using only the right hand) and where spices (and spiciness) have been developed to a fine art. This is the traditional home of black pepper, cinnamon, ginger, cardamom and masala. 4: East Asia (mainly China, Japan and Korea), a region of extreme culinary diversity and customs, strongly characterized by chopsticks and fermented (savoury) sauces, and rice as the staple food. 5: Southeast Asia (Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam and Indonesia), where a fork (in the left hand) and spoon (in the right hand) are often used, and where elements of both South and East Asian cooking have been incorporated into local traditions. It is the birthplace of many spices, including cloves, nutmeg and mace. 6: Europe and many of its former colonies, where the knife and fork are the main utensils for eating. Traditional spices are few and far between, hence the need for an overland and maritime spice trade and its dramatic human cultural upheavals, still with us today. 7: The New World, with marvels such as chilli pepper, vanilla and chocolate, not to mention corn (maize), beans, pumpkins and tomatoes. Today it is the ultimate mosaic of fusion foods, ranging from authentic Inca, Mexican and Canadian-aboriginal to Creole, Cajun, Tex-Mex, Chinese-American, African-American Soul Food and many more.

The adventure of exploring the culinary diversity of the world also involves the age-old tradition of growing your own vegetables and herbs, not only to have access to fresh food items but also to enjoy the pleasure of being self-sufficient or to experience the fulfilment that comes from creating a beautiful herb garden. Many city-dwellers today have limited space, but people often grow fresh herbs in containers on the balcony or even on the window sill. The modern herb garden sometimes takes the shape of a large ceramic or terracotta pot with a lemon tree (or cherry tomato) as centre-piece, surrounded by parsley, basil, thyme, chives and other favourite herbs.

Another part of the new adventure is to learn more about the terminology and intricate relationships between the biology, botany, physiology and chemistry of tastes and flavours. New information is becoming available on an unprecedented scale but is not always reliable and rarely presents a complete synthesis and birds eye view of a subject, such as culinary herbs and spices. The aim of this book is therefore to supply a broad new perspective of the scientific (botanical and chemical) principles of tastes and flavours and to make an interesting and colourful contribution to the culinary exploration of the world.