SPICES

 What are spices?

Spices can be easily identified as dried seeds, fruits or roots that help to flavor food and preserve food by killing harmful bacteria that grow on food. Besides being used in cooking, many of these spices are also used in medicines, perfumes, It can be seen to be used as a type of ointment or for religious purposes.

Popular spices of Sri Lanka-:

Among the spices grown in Sri Lanka, cloves, cinnamon, cardamom, nutmeg, black pepper, are popular as minor export crops. In addition, vanilla, curry, coriander, cumin, fennel, turmeric, saffron, mustard, ginger, sera, Spices like sorghum are also popular natural food flavourings both locally and internationally.

cinnamon

The history of cinnamon in Sri Lanka stretches back to the colonial era. The biological name of cinnamon belonging to the genus Lauraceae is Cinnamomum Verum. The dried stem of the cinnamon plant is used as a spice. 

Cinnamon is also a type of spice native to Sri Lanka. Quality cinnamon in Sri Lanka It is also reported that there was a ritual of sprinkling cinnamon powder on the dead body during the royal funerals of the Pharaohs of Egypt in the distant past.

Karadamungu 

The cardamom plant, which bears the biological name Elettaria Cardamomum, belongs to the genus Zingiberaccae and is very similar in appearance to the ginger plant. A canopy of high-growing plants and a constant shade environment and moisture dependence are essential factors for the high-quality growth of cardamom in the Middle East.

 Properly ripened cardamom must be hand-picked one by one and dried in factories and processed for export. Puddings in Sri Lanka And karandamungu is specially used to flavor watalappan.

Cloves 

The clove plant is very similar to the olive plant. However, there is a difference in the number of leaves of the clove plant. The cloves, which have the biological name Syzigium Aromaticium of the genus Myrtaccae, are harvested from their buds. These cloves are dried to a dark brown colour.

 Cloves are also used as a powder. In cooking, cloves are expected to be fragrant as well as to facilitate digestion. Also, cloves are used as an excellent medicine for oral diseases, especially toothache.

Muskastnuss

Nutmeg is similar in shape to oranges. When dried, its seed and seed coat resemble a glass ball. Nutmeg, scientifically known as Myristica Fragrans, is a plant belonging to the Myristicaceae family.

 The dried nutmeg seed and seed coat are used as a powder and a spice.

pepper

The scientific name of the pepper plant, Piper nigrum, which belongs to the genus Piperraceae, is a crop that can be grown well in both the wet and dry regions of Sri Lanka. 

The well-ripened pepper pods turn black after being lightly dried and are eaten as powder, pieces and seeds. Local Pepper has become an essential spice to spice up foreign recipes.