The Spice Sleuth

Of Fish fame, Pike Place Market in Seatle has chillies ranging from yellow to purple. Cinnamon has a twin brother cassia – the tall, dark and handsome twig of dalchini that has a permanent place in our kitchens. Pythagoras used poultice of mustard seeds as a cure for scorpion bites. Worcestershire sauce was born out of an Englishman's nostalgia for Indian food on return to his home country. Any guesses about one of Worcester's key ingredients? Asafoetida aka hing.

Full of such intriguing nuggets, The Flavour of Spice: Journey, Recipes and Stories by Marryam H Reshii, is a succulent read. Over 320 pages and three sections – the first captures the big four: (chilli, cumin, turmeric and coriander); the second is dedicated to aromatics, and the third is to seed spices – she goes Sherlock Holmes with each spice. She not only digs out all aliases every spice has ever assumed, be it in India or around the world, but also lists all its variants and traces their birthplace through various sources, including the etymology, the Bible and even the nostrils of an Egyptian mummy!

Through anecdotes and stories, she takes you on an experiential tour de globe to explore the fields where they grow and the best spice markets that may make you sneeze with potent, pungent smells. Would you have imagined that black cumin grows along the runway of Srinagar airport?

As you travel, you discover each region's beliefs, traditions, preferences as well as unique, dissimilar and sometimes bizarre ways of using the same spice. A rather cringe-worthy culinary misadventure seems Reshii's rendezvous with candied coriander in Rome. Be warned – the journey's going to make you hungry as she describes delicacies, but Reshii is kind enough to share recipes (some her own, several from others) generously. If you OD on them, by now you'll know the go-to spices to aid your digestion or offer other medicinal benefits. But their magical powers wouldn't work if you're tricked into buying spurious goods -- so Reshii ensures you know better by informing you of debates, explaining grades, revealing trade secrets, demolishing the fallacies and helping you discern fake from genuine.

The journey is far from over. You must time-travel to witness spice wars fought over aromatics, starting with Spain and Portugal and joined later by Netherlands and UK. It's not for nothing that Christopher Columbus, Vasco da Gama and others set out to sea; Arab blackmarketeers who sold spices to the West would weave stories of fire-spewing dragons to conceal the real locations. The Dutch even sterilised nutmeg with lime before exporting it, so that buyers couldn't replant them. Europe went through all of this, only to lose its excitement after a few centuries of consuming spices in industrial quantities. Yes, they did, though later relegating their usage largely to bakes and desserts. And so, Reshii traces new geographies where the spices travelled, with new amours offering their loyalties. Spices too, compete in the course of history.

While Reshii's writing style is simple, the sheer density of the information, and her penchant for meandering into asides, slows down the pace. Crispness could have been achieved by avoiding the repetition of information and ideas, a fairly common feature in the book. But at the same time, it's the very intensity produced by details that keeps you hooked. The Gujarati combination of coriander-cumin dhana-jeeru, she misspels as dhano-jeera and the explanation about strict vegetarians avoiding onion and garlic for aphrodisiacs also seems like a misconception; such observance by certain vegetarian communities has its roots in Ayurveda that considers onion and garlic tamasic – i.e. foods that are dry, old, foul, or unpalatable, and are thought to promote pessimism, ignorance, laziness, criminal tendencies, and doubt. On a positive note though, you come out learning that hing makes for a good alternative. Moreover, information about usage of certain spices in vegetarian cooking doesn't seem as expansive or well-covered as in cooking of meat. Finally, calling the Sri Lankan variant 'true cinnamon' gives a negative connotation to the Chinese variant, cassia, making it seem fake; whereas, both serve different purposes due to their different properties.

That said, you have to give it to Reshii for dissecting spices like a scientist, finding out the percentage of volatile oil, moisture content or elements that give one variant of the same spice a pronounced flavour and the other, a milder one. Furthermore, Reshii is frank about admitting when she doesn't know something yet, and equally enthusiastic about bringing in voices and the works of everyone from knowledgeable chefs, home cooks and restaurateurs to food technologists, researchers and bloggers.

The chapter on saffron, perhaps the most expensive spice, is also the most delightful; so beautiful are the stories around it (saffron) that it's easy to forget the cynicism-inducing politics facing the producing regions.

The book has a greater India-focus, but besides the aforementioned sections, there are chapters dedicated to spice grinders, spice mixes and spices abroad to ensure you're left wanting for nothing. The Flavour of Spice is truly like a guide, one every foodie and cook would want to keep referring back to. What's more, as the chapter on each spice is complete by itself, you don't necessarily have to race to the end at one go. You can read about a spice you're presently drawn to, and return again for another helping.