Herbs and spices

Herbs and spices are wonderful gifts of nature. They have been used to flavour food and to make medicines since prehistoric times.



Herbs and spices have been known to mankind for a long time. They have been proven to be successful ingredients in dishes and remedies. Herbs, due to their healing power, have found their usefulness in medicine while spices, which have strong taste, are used in cooking as added ingredients to provide the required taste and flavor to the dish.



Herbs are small flowering plants, and there are hundreds of different kinds, each with its own special properties. Usually
it is the leaves that are valued, but it can be the flowers or the
stem.



Some, such as basil and oregano are edible and used in small quantities to flavour food. Others, like feverfew, are valued more for their medicinal qualities. Spices are strongly flavoured seeds, roots and bark that are usually ground into powder to add to food as it is cooked.



Herbs and spices which were discovered in medieval periods,
were at that time available only to the rich. As time passed by,
they became the main products for trading between nations. In
addition, their usage was given more importance so they were
priced according to their availability in different regions.



Tea
Tea is the dried leaves of a small camellia bush that grows
on hillsides in subtropical areas, especially in India, Sri Lanka, Japan and China.
Black Tea and Green Tea
There are two main kinds of tea: green tea and black tea.
Green tea is picked and dried quickly, giving a mild flavour.
Green tea is popular in China. Black tea is only partly dried
before it is crushed in rolling machines, giving a much stronger flavour.
Masala Chai
Masala chai (literally “spiced tea”) generally known as ‘Indian Tea’ is a beverage from the Indian subcontinent made by brewing tea with a mixture of aromatic Indian spices and herbs.
Coffee
Coffee is made from the ground and roasted beans of the coffee bush. The beans are collected and soaked, then the husks are removed and the beans are dried, sorted and roasted. The longer the roast, the stronger and darker the coffee.
Instant Coffee
Coffee can be made into instant coffee powder by boiling coffee dry, or into instant coffee granules by plunging ground beans into liquid gasto freeze-dry them. 
Herbal Drugs
Many of today’s medicines come originally from plants, including aspirin (from willow trees), morphine (from the seeds of the opium poppy) and quinine (from the bark of the cinchona tree of South America). An extract of the rosy periwinkle, called incristine, is one of the drugs used against childhood cancer.


Herb Facts 

•  Egyptian pyramid builders ate garlic because 
• they thought it would give them strengt.
•  Rosemary gets its name from the Latin ros
• marinus which means sea dew
•  The ancient Greeks called basil 
• ‘King of Herbs’
•  The Latin name for sage is Salvia, which means healthy, and sage is thought to have healing qualities.
•  Mint and the spice cinnamon keep moths away from clothes.
•  Oregano is used as a dye as well as a food flavour.

Spice Facts

•  It takes 400,000 hand-picked crocus flower heads to make 1kg of saffron.
• Even though it is a hot spice, chilli can cool you down because it makes you sweat.
• Cinnamon comes from the bark of a tree.
• Nutmeg is the seed of  a tree.
• Star anise takes 15 years to grow.
• Pepper is sometimes called ‘The King of the Spices’

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