107 Fun Facts About Spice

Which spice is the world's most expensive by weight?

Saffron is the priciest spice by weight because every thread is picked by hand from crocus flowers; at times it has been worth more than its weight in gold.

The threads of the crocus-derived spice are which part of the flower?

The stigmas and styles, the red female parts of the crocus flower, are the threads; each bloom has only three, so they have to be plucked out by hand.

Which country produces around 90% of the world's crocus-thread spice?

Iran grows roughly 90% of the world's crop, mostly in the Khorasan region; Spain, home of the protected La Mancha threads, grows only a tiny share.

Roughly how many crocus flowers does it take to make one kilogram of the dried threads?

About 150,000 crocus flowers go into one kilogram of the dried spice, because each bloom gives only three threads, every one picked by hand.

Black pepper is the dried fruit of a vine thought to be native to which region?

Piper nigrum is thought to be native to South Asia's Malabar Coast, where Roman traders were buying it two thousand years ago.

How does white pepper differ from black pepper?

It is only the seed of the ripe fruit: the berries are soaked and the outer flesh rubbed off, leaving a milder, paler spice.

Which country led world black pepper production in 2023 with about 30% of the total?

Vietnam led 2023 output with roughly 30% of the world's peppercorns; pepper became one of its main export crops after market reforms opened up its farm trade.

Peppercorns were found stuffed in the nostrils of which Egyptian pharaoh's mummy?

Ramesses II, who died in 1213 BC, had his nostrils packed with peppercorns and resin by his embalmers, probably to help his prominent nose keep its shape.

Pink peppercorns are actually what?

The berry of a cashew-family tree, the Peruvian or Brazilian pepper tree, is sold as pink peppercorns; it is no relation of black pepper, though the two are often blended together.

The heat in black pepper comes mainly from which compound?

Piperine, an alkaloid, gives black pepper its bite; light turns it into tasteless forms, so pepper left in the light slowly loses its heat.

Cinnamon is obtained from which part of the tree?

Cinnamon is the inner bark of Cinnamomum trees; stripped from young shoots, it curls into quills as it dries.

'True' or Ceylon cinnamon takes its name from the former name of which country?

Ceylon was the colonial name of Sri Lanka, home of Cinnamomum verum; most supermarket cinnamon is actually cassia, which carries far more coumarin.

Herodotus claimed cinnamon sticks were collected by giant what?

Birds, Herodotus wrote, built cliff nests from cinnamon sticks; Arabians left out chunks of ox meat, and the nests broke under the weight when the birds carried it up.

Mace is a spice made from what part of the nutmeg?

Mace is the reddish seed covering, a lacy aril peeled off the nutmeg seed and dried separately, giving two spices from one fruit.

Under the 1667 Treaty of Breda, England gave up nutmeg island Run and kept which territory?

England kept New Amsterdam (Manhattan), seized in 1664 and renamed New York, while the Dutch kept Run and with it their grip on the world's nutmeg.

The nutmeg tree is native to which island group?

Nutmeg is native to the Banda Islands in the Moluccas; the Dutch East India Company waged a bloody campaign against the Bandanese in 1621 to secure a monopoly.

Eating large amounts of nutmeg can cause poisoning from which compound?

Myristicin, a psychoactive compound in nutmeg oil, causes the nausea, palpitations and hallucinations of nutmeg poisoning, which is why nutmeg 'highs' tend to end badly.

Vanilla comes from the fruit of what kind of plant?

An orchid, the climbing vine Vanilla planifolia, bears the fruit; each flower lasts only about a day, so growers have to check their vines daily.

On which island did Edmond Albius, an enslaved 12-year-old, devise vanilla's quick hand-pollination method in 1841?

Réunion is where Edmond Albius lifted the flap inside each flower with a thin stick and pressed the pollen across with his thumb, a method still used today.

Which island is the world's largest producer of vanilla?

Madagascar grows more vanilla than any other country; so far from the plant's native Mexico, every flower there has to be pollinated by hand.

The word 'vanilla' comes from a Spanish word meaning what?

Vainilla means 'little pod': it is the diminutive of Spanish vaina, 'sheath' or 'pod', named for the bean-like fruit.

Cloves are which part of the clove tree?

Dried flower buds, picked by hand before they open, are what we call cloves; the name comes from the Latin for 'nail', after their shape.

In Indonesia, cloves are famously blended into which product?

Kretek cigarettes blend tobacco with ground cloves that crackle as they burn; the United States has banned their sale since 2009, along with other flavoured cigarettes.

Eugenol, the main compound in clove oil, is chiefly responsible for what?

Its aroma: eugenol gives cloves their scent, and it numbs too, which is why clove oil is an old toothache remedy and dentists still use eugenol in dental cement.

Chili pepper heat is measured in units named after which pharmacist, who devised the test in 1912?

Wilbur Scoville, a pharmacist, devised the Scoville Organoleptic Test in 1912, using panels of tasters who diluted extracts until the burn disappeared.

Which chili, also known as bhut jolokia, did Guinness certify as the world's hottest in 2007?

Ghost pepper, or bhut jolokia, took the record from the Red Savina habanero in 2007; India's army has since packed it into chili grenades that work like tear gas.

Why did Columbus's crew call the chilies they found 'peppers'?

They were pungent like black pepper, the costly spice Columbus had sailed to find, and the name stuck as Portuguese and Spanish traders carried chilies on to Africa and Asia.

Chipotle is the smoke-dried form of which chili?

Jalapeños are usually picked green; those left to ripen red are smoke-dried into chipotles, a way of keeping chilies the Aztecs are thought to have used.

Which country grew about 40% of the world's fresh chilies and peppers in 2024?

China grew about 39% of the world's fresh chilies and peppers in 2024, though the plants only reached East Asia from the Americas in the late 1500s.

In the 2020s, after the two costliest spices, which was the third most expensive by weight?

Cardamom, the green seed pods of a plant from the moist forests of southern India, ranked third by price in the 2020s; the pods are picked just before they ripen, then dried.

Which Central American country became the world's top grower of cardamom in 1979-80?

Guatemala overtook the spice's homeland in 1979-80; a German coffee planter had introduced it before the First World War, and Alta Verapaz now grows most of the crop.

Which compound gives curry powder its characteristic golden colour?

Curcumin, a bright yellow polyphenol, colours curry powder; paper soaked in it turns reddish-brown in alkali, which is why it works as a pH indicator.

Star anise was long the main commercial source of shikimic acid, a precursor of which drug?

Tamiflu starts from shikimic acid, long extracted from star anise; engineered bacteria now make much of it.

Star anise and the unrelated anise plant share their liquorice flavour thanks to which compound?

Anethole flavours both spices though the plants are unrelated; it dissolves in alcohol but not in water, which is why ouzo and pastis turn cloudy when diluted.

Allspice got its name because its berry seemed to combine the flavours of which three spices?

Cinnamon, nutmeg and clove are what the English tasted in it; despite the name, allspice is no blend but the dried unripe berry of a single Caribbean tree.

Szeged and Kalocsa are the two principal growing regions for which spice in Hungary?

Paprika from Szeged also earned a Nobel: Albert Szent-Györgyi found the local peppers so rich in vitamin C that he used them in the work honoured in 1937.

Spain's pimentón de la Vera gets its distinctive flavour from being dried how?

Over oak-wood smoke: growers in the La Vera valley dry their peppers above smouldering holm-oak fires, while Murcia's pimentón is dried in the sun and stays unsmoked.

The tingling numbness of Sichuan pepper comes from which compound?

Hydroxy-alpha sanshool triggers touch-sensitive nerves, producing the tingling, buzzing numbness; the 'peppercorn' is the husk of a Zanthoxylum shrub unrelated to black pepper or chili.

Why did the United States ban imports of Sichuan peppercorns from 1968 to 2005?

They could carry citrus canker, a bacterial disease of citrus trees, since the shrub belongs to the citrus family; imports resumed in 2005 once the peppercorns were heat-treated.

Which country produces about 70% of the world's cumin?

India grows about 70% of the world's cumin, yet the plant is no native: it came from further west, somewhere between the eastern Mediterranean and Central Asia.

Gari, the thin pink slices served with sushi, is which spice pickled in sweet vinegar?

Ginger, sliced thin and pickled in sugar and vinegar, is eaten between pieces of sushi to cleanse the palate; only very young ginger turns pink without added colouring.

Most 'wasabi' served outside Japan is actually a mixture based on what?

Most 'wasabi' paste is horseradish mixed with mustard and green colouring; real wasabi needs shade, cool temperatures and running water, so it is scarce and expensive.

The burn of wasabi is felt mainly where?

In the nasal passage is where wasabi's volatile allyl isothiocyanate ends up, rather than clinging to the tongue, which is why the burn hits the nose and fades quickly.

American yellow mustard gets its bright colour from which spice?

Turmeric gives American yellow mustard its bright colour; French's launched the style as 'Cream Salad' mustard at the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair.

Sotolon, the compound that gives fenugreek its smell, is why the spice is used to flavour imitation what?

Sotolon gives fenugreek its burnt-sugar aroma, which is why the seed is used to flavour imitation maple syrup and why eating a lot of it makes sweat smell sweet.

After beating Genoa at Chioggia in 1380, which city dominated the spice trade with the Middle East for a century?

Venice controlled the flow of Eastern spices into Europe through its Levant trade; breaking that hold drove Portugal to seek a sea route east, found by Vasco da Gama in 1498.

Which spice is the dried resin of Ferula plants, nicknamed 'devil's dung'?

Asafoetida is the dried milky sap of Ferula plants; raw it stinks of sulphur, hence 'devil's dung', yet cooks use a pinch to stand in for onion and garlic.

Unlike spices, herbs usually come from which parts of a plant?

Herbs are the leaves, flowers or stems of a plant, while spices come from seeds, bark, roots or fruit; coriander is both, its leaf an herb and its seed a spice.

McCormick, the spice giant behind Old Bay seasoning, was founded in 1889 in which city?

Baltimore is where Willoughby McCormick, aged 25, started out in 1889 with one room and a cellar, selling root beer and flavouring extracts door to door.

Juniper berries, a spice in their own right, give which spirit its signature flavour?

Gin is flavoured with juniper 'berries', which are not berries at all but small fleshy cones, among the few spices that come from a conifer.

In the Bible, which king received camel-loads of spices from the Queen of Sheba?

Solomon was given the spices, gold and jewels after the queen came to test him with hard questions; 1 Kings says so many spices never reached Jerusalem again.

Historians largely reject the claim that medieval Europeans used spices for what purpose?

Masking spoiled meat makes little sense as a motive: spices cost far more than fresh meat, and medieval recipes add them at the end of cooking, too late to preserve anything.

The Republic of Ragusa, a maritime power in the medieval spice trade, was based in which Croatian city?

Dubrovnik was Ragusa's capital; the republic paid the Ottoman sultan a yearly tribute for the right to trade across his empire, and lasted until Napoleon's marshal Marmont abolished it in 1808.

Which East African island became the world's leading clove grower under Sultan Said in the 1800s?

Zanzibar became the leading clove producer after Sultan Said bin Sultan of Oman bought up its clove plantations and moved his capital there from Muscat.

Vasco da Gama's 1497 fleet crossed the Indian Ocean to which Malabar Coast port, seat of the Zamorin?

Da Gama reached Calicut, the Zamorin's capital, in May 1498 after a pilot taken on at Malindi guided his ships across the Indian Ocean.

Which Portuguese commander conquered the great trading port of Malacca in 1511?

Afonso de Albuquerque took Malacca in August 1511, then sent António de Abreu east to find the nutmeg and clove islands, which his ships reached in 1512.

Which ancient Roman cookbook calls for black pepper in most of its recipes?

Apicius, the Roman recipe collection, was probably compiled centuries after the 1st-century gourmet it is named for, yet pepper turns up in most of its recipes.

The Greek town of Marathon, namesake of the long-distance race, has a name that means a place full of which herb?

Fennel is 'marathon' in Greek, so the plain where Athens beat the Persians in 490 BC, and every 26-mile race run since, is named after a field of herbs.

Which herb became popular in the United States after soldiers came home from Italy in World War II?

Oregano had probably flavoured food in southern Italy for centuries before returning American troops brought the taste home and made it a household seasoning.

A variant of the smell-receptor gene OR6A2 is linked to which fresh herb tasting like soap to some people?

Cilantro tastes soapy or rotten to people whose OR6A2 receptor is highly sensitive to aldehydes, the chemicals that make up most of the leaf's scent.

Eating a bagel topped with which seed can cause a positive result for opiates in a drug test?

Poppy seed can carry traces of morphine and codeine from the plant that yields opium, enough to trip a screening, although more refined tests can tell the difference.

Which founder's secret blend of 11 herbs and spices is still guarded by giving two suppliers half the recipe each?

Colonel Sanders signed a copy of the recipe that sits in a vault at KFC's Louisville headquarters, beside 11 vials that each hold one of the ingredients.

Which hot sauce, made on Louisiana's Avery Island since 1868, shares its name with a state in southern Mexico?

Tabasco was created by Edmund McIlhenny, a Maryland-born former banker, and the company that bears his name still produces it on the same island.

Sprigs of which herb, a symbol of remembrance, are worn in Australia on ANZAC Day each April?

Rosemary grows wild on the Gallipoli Peninsula, where many Australians died in World War I, which is why sprigs of it are worn at ANZAC services.

Which New England state is nicknamed the Nutmeg State, possibly after peddlers who sold wooden fakes of the spice?

Connecticut residents are still sometimes called Nutmeggers, though nobody knows where the nickname began; another tale credits tin graters sold by the state's early peddlers.

Which seed, ground into tahini and pressed for oil, provides the magic password in the tale of Ali Baba?

Sesame capsules burst open when the seeds are ripe, the image behind the cave-opening spell, and the plant is one of the oldest oilseed crops known.

The word 'clove', first used in English in the 15th century, comes from Latin 'clavus', meaning which pointed object?

Nail is also what the Old French name 'clou de girofle' meant, and one look at the spice's round top and tapering shaft shows why.

Which herb, whose name comes from the Greek for 'royal plant', is pounded into the Genoese sauce pesto?

Basil is first documented in pesto only from the 1850s, a late arrival in a sauce whose name simply means 'pounded'.

Which herb is layered with veal and prosciutto in Roman saltimbocca and mixed with onion in British roast stuffing?

Sage was prized enough for Charlemagne to recommend growing it, and the monastery gardens of his empire duly cultivated it.

Which herb did ancient Greeks add to baths and burn as temple incense, believing that it gave them courage?

Thyme kept that reputation into the Middle Ages, when women gave knights and warriors gifts that included sprigs of it to make them brave.

Which fern-leaved herb cures the salmon in Nordic gravlax and gives its name to a classic pickled cucumber?

Dill is packed around the fish with salt and sugar, an echo of the medieval fishermen who cured their catch by burying it in sand above the high-tide line.

Which herb joins bourbon, sugar and crushed ice in the julep, the signature drink of the Kentucky Derby?

Mint juleps have been promoted by Churchill Downs alongside the race since 1938, and about 120,000 were served there over two days of racing in 2009.

Wreaths cut from which tree, sacred to Apollo, were the prize for victors at ancient Greece's Pythian Games?

Bay laurel, the same tree whose leaves flavour stews, gave English the title 'poet laureate', one crowned with laurel; winners at Olympia wore wild olive instead.

Which herb, whose species name 'dracunculus' means 'little dragon', is the main flavouring of Béarnaise sauce?

Tarragon seems to owe the dragon name to its coiled roots, and the plant is still simply called 'dragon' in Swedish and Dutch.

Which herb is typical of herbes de Provence sold in North America yet absent from a classic 1910 Provençal cookbook?

Lavender appears in none of the recipes in Jean-Baptiste Reboul's compendium of the region's cooking, and blends were only sold under the Provence name from the 1970s.

Which tart crimson spice, ground from dried fruits, gives the Middle Eastern blend za'atar its sour edge?

Sumac gets its lemony sharpness from malic acid, and in North America its wild relatives are steeped to make a pink drink nicknamed sumac-ade.

Which colouring, taken from the seeds of the tropical achiote tree, gives Red Leicester cheese its orange hue?

Annatto let cheesemakers copy the orange tint of rich summer milk all year round, and Red Leicester used it to stand out from Cheddar.

Which crescent-shaped seed gives rye bread its flavour and is distilled into Scandinavian akvavit and German Kümmel?

Caraway also turns up in sauerkraut and in cheeses such as danbo and bondost, and its oil flavours Iceland's brennivín too.

Gilroy, California, bills itself as the world capital of which pungent bulb, honoured by a festival it launched in 1979?

Garlic has been farmed commercially around Gilroy since the 1920s, when Kiyoshi 'Jimmy' Hirasaki, later known as the Garlic King, began growing it.

The pulp of which sour tropical fruit gives Worcestershire sauce and Britain's HP Sauce their tang?

Tamarind pulp also sours chutneys, curries and some barbecue sauces, and its name comes from an Arabic phrase that calls it a kind of date.

Which bitter herb, known to botanists as Artemisia absinthium, flavours absinthe and also gave vermouth its name?

Wormwood is 'Wermut' in German, the word that French and English borrowed as 'vermouth' for a wine traditionally flavoured with the plant.

Citronella oil, the insect repellent in garden candles, comes from close relatives of which Southeast Asian herb?

Lemongrass shares the genus Cymbopogon with the two-metre citronella grasses, whose oil is antiseptic enough to go into soaps and household disinfectants.

Which anise-flavoured spirit gives its name to the effect that turns such drinks cloudy when water is added?

Ouzo shares the trick with sambuca and absinthe: each is clear in the bottle, and the milky clouding also goes by the French name louche.

Chimichurri, the uncooked herb sauce spooned over grilled steak, was found originally in which Latin American country?

Argentina drew many Basque settlers in the 19th century, and one theory traces the name 'chimichurri' to a Basque word for a hodgepodge.

Which compound makes chilli peppers burn by binding to TRPV1, a receptor that also responds to heat?

Capsaicin probably evolved to put off mammals, whose molar teeth destroy the plant's seeds, and to hold back fungi.

Which gnarled red chilli, bred by Ed Currie, was Guinness's hottest from 2013 until his own Pepper X beat it in 2023?

Carolina Reaper owes 'Reaper' to the sickle-like tail on each fruit, and its record heat was measured at Winthrop University in South Carolina.

Sriracha, the chilli sauce first produced in 1932, takes its name from a town in which country?

Thailand uses sriracha mainly as a dip for seafood and omelets; the rooster-bottle version famous in the United States only appeared in the early 1980s.

Allspice berries and Scotch bonnet chillies are the main seasonings of jerk, a way of cooking native to which island?

Jamaica's jerk is traced to the island's indigenous Taíno and to the Maroons, who escaped slavery in the 17th century and carried the method on.

Harissa, the fiery chilli paste UNESCO lists as intangible cultural heritage, is most closely tied to which country?

Tunisia only gained the chillies for it through the Columbian exchange, presumably under Spanish occupation between 1535 and 1574; the name comes from an Arabic root meaning 'to pound'.

Ras el hanout, a North African blend of a merchant's finest spices, has an Arabic name with which literal meaning?

'Head of the shop' promises the best a seller has to offer, and Moroccan versions have even included supposed aphrodisiacs such as dried green beetles.

What French name is given to a bundle of herbs tied with string, simmered in a stew and removed before serving?

Bouquet garni means 'garnished bouquet', and cooks who skip the string tuck the herbs into a leek leaf, a celery stalk or even a tea strainer.

Which ship, the only one of Magellan's fleet to sail around the world, reached Spain in 1522 laden with cloves?

Victoria came home with only 18 of the roughly 270 men who had set out, yet her shipload of spices was worth more than the entire original fleet had cost.

Pierre Poivre, a French botanist of the 1700s, brought nutmeg and other Southeast Asian spices to which island colony?

Mauritius also owes him its Pamplemousses botanical garden, and the tongue-twister's Peter Piper is thought to be a play on his surname, French for pepper.

Berbere, the chilli-based spice mix that can include korarima and rue, is a key ingredient in which country's cuisine?

Ethiopia shares berbere with neighbouring Eritrea, and the same word is also simply the name for the chilli itself.

Cumin, anise, lovage and angelica all belong to the same plant family as which common root vegetable?

Carrot, celery and parsley each lend the family a common name; botanists call it Apiaceae, after a word Pliny the Elder used for a celery-like plant.

Which prized seasoning, stamped on the coins of ancient Cyrene, is said to have died out in Roman times?

Silphium was so prized that Rome's treasury held 1,500 pounds of it in Julius Caesar's day, and its loss may be the first recorded extinction of any species.

Which creamy chicken curry, possibly invented in Glasgow, did a British foreign secretary call a true national dish?

Tikka masala began, one story goes, when Glasgow chef Ali Ahmed Aslam improvised a sauce from a tin of condensed tomato soup for a customer who found his chicken too dry.

Amchur, a tart beige powder that sours Indian curries and soups, is made by sun-drying which fruit while still green?

Mango for amchur is picked early in the season, peeled, thinly sliced and sun-dried, and the powder is also used to tenderise poultry.

Goa's fiery vindaloo descends from a marinated pork dish brought by colonists from which European country?

Portugal ruled Goa from the early 1500s; 'vindaloo' is a worn-down 'vinha d'alhos', and the potatoes sometimes added come from confusion with the Hindi word 'aloo'.

What is the Hindi name for tempering, the technique of briefly frying whole spices in hot oil or ghee?

Tadka descends from a Sanskrit root meaning 'crackles, splits, fizzes', the sound the seeds make as they hit the pan.

Tandoori chicken, popularised by Delhi's Moti Mahal restaurant in the 1940s, is named after the tandoor, which is what?

A clay oven of this kind was traditionally used for baking naan; Kundan Lal Gujral, one of Moti Mahal's founders, is credited with the spice blend that became tandoori seasoning.

Which small black seed, sold as kalonji, tops some naan breads and turned up in the Tomb of Tutankhamun?

Nigella has been cultivated for some three thousand years, and it hides behind misleading names such as black onion seed and Roman coriander.

Kala namak, a kiln-fired seasoning with a sulphurous smell used across the subcontinent, goes by which English name?

Black salt is a loose description: ground to a powder it can look anything from pink to dark black, and the smell comes from its sulphur content.

Panch phoron, a tempering mix of five whole seeds, is a signature of which region split between two modern countries?

Bengal cooks always use the blend whole, never ground, and its name literally means 'five spices'.

Kashmiri chillies, a staple of restaurant kitchens across India, are prized chiefly for giving a dish what?

A deep red colour without much burn is the appeal, and demand runs so high that Byadagi chillies are often used as stand-ins.

Which French liqueur, made by Carthusian monks since 1737, is said to contain 130 herbs, plants and flowers?

Chartreuse gave its name to the yellow-green colour, and the exact recipe is known only to a select few of the monks.

Filé powder, sprinkled over Louisiana gumbo to season and thicken it, is made from the ground leaves of which tree?

Sassafras leaves were first dried and ground as a seasoning by the Choctaw of the American South, and cooks add the powder only after the pot has left the heat.