Queen of the Spices
By Anna Fishman at March 9, 2009 | 11:43 am | Print
“What’s this,” enquired my co-worker, eyebrow raised as he thoughtfully chewed.
“It’s a peanut butter cookie… with cardamom,” I mischievously replied.
“Carda-what?”
“Car-da-mom.”
“Never heard of it.”
“Do you like it?”
“No comment,” my co-worker replied, reaching for a second helping.
Nine months ago, while perusing a market buried within New York’s Chinatown, I happened upon a bag of cardamom pods. I’ve had a love/hate relationship with these little green powerhouses since the June 2005 issue of Bon Appetit. The cover featured “Persian Love Cake,” a lemon-cardamom chiffon frosted with rose-scented whipped cream. At the time, I was reluctant to make the cake—pungent cardamom combined with flowery rosewater? On one hand, the flavors could be completely overpowering. On the other, they could be seductively surprising. For this home cook, the idea of love cake represents test cooking at its best—the nagging fear as a new dish is prepared, the nonchalance if it doesn’t work out, the exultant high of a successful creation. Parading out of the Chinatown market, cardamom pods in hand, I itched to crack open the pods, and deduct my own application.
Alas, the cardamom laid idle in my cupboard for months—my confidence and creativity dimmed on the plane from New York. I liked the idea of cardamom. The thought imparts an automatic sexiness—rather than simply “pistachio cookies,” I could make “cardamom-scented pistachio cookies.” Yet I couldn’t surpass the risk of tossing into my food an ingredient that, in a single 1mm-wide seed, creates a flavor burst across the entire tongue. I’ve read about it, eaten it in dishes prepared by others, but didn’t know enough to ply it to a new venture. In restaurant-prepared biriyanis and curries, its anise-like, minty scent adds a pleasant layer of complexity… but to my experimental home-cookery, the hazard of overwhelming a dish seemed too great.
Until 100 years ago, cardamom was found only in Sri Lanka and Southwest India, where it earned the name “queen of the spices.” According to the Field Guide of Herbs and Spices, German immigrants transplanted cardamom into Guatemala, which now is the world’s largest exporter of this third-most expensive spice. Like its less expensive cousin, ginger, cardamom shines in both sweet and savory applications. North Indians add it to biriyani, Sri Lankans use it as a curry base, and Scandinavians bake it into breads and cookies. Wait, how did Scandinavians incorporate a traditionally Southeast Asian spice into their cuisine? In spite of popular belief, the Greeks and Romans were unlikely to have access to true cardamom. There is also no reference to cardamom in Marco Polo’s works. While the Vikings could have imported cardamom into Scandinavia via the Constantinople trade, another theory states that the spice caught on in the mid-1500’s, when a European named Garcia de Orta studied both small and large cardamom while visiting India. At any rate, the Scandinavians made cardamom their own. The application of cardamom in European-style sweet baked goods contrasts to the original Southeast Asian application in savories and dairy desserts—but obviously was a successful experiment in someone’s kitchen.
A couple weeks ago, while pondering the use of cardamom in Scandinavian bakeries and staring at the obstinate unopened bag of green pods, I impulsively decided to incorporate the spice into peanut butter cookies meant for my office. If cardamom enhanced the batch, then all the better—otherwise, the sugar should mask most flavor imperfections. After cracking open a green pod with the flat of my knife, à la garlic, the sweet aromatic scent invaded my nostrils. “Bet this would be awesome in coffee,” I thought… and then remembered that the Arabs came up with that application thousands of years ago. Similar to the idea of plying a filter to the spout of a tea pot, Bedouins add split cardamom pods to their coffee spouts, enhancing the drink’s flavor.
After close examination and thoughtful chewing, I ground the cardamom seeds in a bit of salt to create a paste. While the scent was pleasant, the thought of my American co-workers crunching on aromatic kernels in midst of their peanut butter chips seemed like a recipe for disaster. After mixing the contents of a mere five pods into the dough, the texture was no longer an issue, but in my opinion, the cardamom completely overpowered the smooth richness of the peanut butter—even the sugar failed to balance the scent. Nonetheless, the cookies were baked and brought to work. The batch wasn’t inedible, but a curious flavor rode in concert with the peanut. What the hell, maybe someone would like them.
Then it hit me. My palate prefers cardamom as a dish balancer or enhancer—like a good wine paired with food. Cardamom couples well with piquant curry to create deep flavor notes. It magically augments ice cream, the cool mintiness mirroring ice cream’s temperature and smooth, velvety mouthfeel. The spice does nothing for peanut butter cookies, save adding an overhanging aromatic. Cardamom pairs as well with peanut as a glass of red with shrimp scampi. Then again, many of my friends prefer to drink red wine over white, regardless of the meal. And if I hadn’t experimented with the peanut/cardamom combination, the curiosity would have nagged like the unmade Persian Love Cake. As for my guinea pig co-workers… there weren’t many comments made about the cardamom peanut butter cookies—but there also weren’t any leftovers.
1) Raghaven, S. (2006). Handbook of Spices, Seasonings, and Flavorings.
2) Watt, G. (1908). The Commercial Products of India. P. 34
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