Spices have been around for thousands of years. They are an indispensable part of our cooking and can make or break a dish – depending on how you use them. They vary across the world, essentially bringing with them the bedrock of a country’s culinary culture or a region’s food heritage.
The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) defines spices as “aromatic vegetable substances, in the whole, broken, or ground form, whose significant function in food is seasoning rather than nutrition.” Simply put, spices are the dried parts of plants that are used in small quantities to flavour food. Herbs generally come from the leaves of plants, while spices come from the seeds, berries, bark or roots.
Spices can come from many different plant parts: roots (ginger, turmeric), rhizomes, stems, leaves, bark (cinnamon), flowers (saffron), fruits/berries (black pepper, chilli powder), and seeds (cumin, nutmeg). That’s why a wide variety of spices provide a wide range of flavours!
While most people immediately tend to associate spices with ethnic cuisines like Indian food,
