Submitted via IRC for Runaway1956
How Spices Have Made, and Unmade, Empires
IN THE HILLY Boaco region of central Nicaragua, the turmeric plants on Celia Dávila and Gonzalo González's farm stand over four feet tall — thriving giants, although as natives of South and Southeast Asia, they're actually newcomers to this land. Coffee once ruled these fields, but as its price has grown unstable, smallholder farmers like Dávila and González, 52 and 65, respectively, have had to turn to alternative crops, among them this strange arrival that yields knobby rhizomes of shocking orange flesh, rarely eaten unadulterated; instead, the underground stems are dried and pulverized into a musky powder with a throb of bitterness, which is most widely recognized worldwide as the earthy base note and color in many Indian dishes. Nicaraguans have no particular use for the spice, which has yet to make inroads in the local diet. But Americans do, having suddenly and belatedly awakened to turmeric's health benefits, some 3,000 years after they were first set down in the Atharva Veda, one of Hinduism's foundational sacred texts.
It's a story at once old and new, a latter-day spice route making unexpected connections between the grandmother in India, stirring turmeric into warm milk for a sniffily child; the Goop acolyte in California, sipping an après-yoga prepackaged turmeric "elixir," whose makers extol the "body harmonizing" powers of the spice's key chemical compound, curcumin; and Dávila wielding a pickax in rural Nicaragua. She is not alone in her embrace of this new harvest: Farmers in Costa Rica, Hawaii and even Minnesota are planting turmeric with an eye on an expanding market. Nor is turmeric the only spice to flourish far from home. The food writer Max Falkowitz has documented the work of small-scale farmers in Guatemala, mostly poor and of indigenous descent, who now grow more than half the world's cardamom, a crop that belonged for millenniums to India and was brought to the Central American cloud forests by a German immigrant in the early 20th century. Cardamom is one of the most expensive spices — so valuable that all of it departs Guatemala for sale elsewhere. As with turmeric in Nicaragua, its absence is hardly registered by local cooks, to whom the spice is an interloper.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 01 2019, @09:52PM (1 child)
How is this a "summary"?
I suspect this could have been an interesting post, but ... yeah, volunteer and do better than fnord. Ugh.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 01 2019, @11:07PM
Highly organized research is guaranteed to produce nothing new.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by el_oscuro on Sunday December 01 2019, @10:31PM (6 children)
Combine in a spice jar:
• 1 1/2 tablespoon dried dill weed
• 1 tablespoon dried parsley
• 1 tablespoon dried chives
• ½ tablespoon onion powder
• 1 tablespoon garlic powder
• ½ tablespoon fine sea salt
• ¼ tablespoon finely cracked pepper
• ½ tablespoon cayenne pepper
To make dressing, add 1/2 tablespoon of this to 1 cup of mayo and 1/2 cup butter milk. You will never buy store bought again.
SoylentNews is Bacon! [nueskes.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 01 2019, @11:09PM (3 children)
Don't forget the bacon bits.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 01 2019, @11:28PM (2 children)
and the Melange.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 01 2019, @11:31PM (1 child)
and the poop
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 01 2019, @11:45PM
And the mighty buzzard droppings.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Snotnose on Monday December 02 2019, @12:02AM (1 child)
You've just called out 6 tbl of spices, there are 4 tbl to 1/4 cup. You're adding 1/2 tbl to 1.5 cup other stuff.
I have no doubt this will be tasty as hell. But.
I've made Sriracha. I've made mustard. I've made mayo. Everydamnedone of them tasted better than store bought. But. The shelf life on them is maybe a week. Dunno about you but I buy all of these on maybe a twice a year schedule.
Spices rule :)
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday December 02 2019, @02:12AM
Isn't sriracha fermented? i.e. you make it by leaving it outside of the fridge, pretty sure it will last months in the fridge.
https://ketodietapp.com/Blog/lchf/how-to-make-fermented-sriracha-sauce [ketodietapp.com]
https://www.krautsource.com/blogs/recipes/fermented-sriracha [krautsource.com]
As for mayo... use it to make pasta or potato salad. That will deplete it quick.
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(Score: -1, Spam) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 01 2019, @11:31PM (2 children)
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(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 01 2019, @11:34PM (1 child)
Dude... You need a Snickers® bar.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 01 2019, @11:43PM
You must be a stakeholder in $35 billion Mars Incorporated.
Vote Republican.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Snotnose on Sunday December 01 2019, @11:46PM
I use a lot of spice to make up for not using the amount of salt nor oils in my cooking.
Those cooking shows where they tell you to season at every step? You aren't seasoning, you're adding salt. Salt doesn't cook away, it stays forever. I use maybe 1/4 the salt the average cooking show uses.
I make my own rubs for beef brisket and pork shoulder. Why? Because most spice blends are at least 30% salt, which after 30 years of cooking is way too much salt for me. Same thing with most fast food joints, their food is way too salty for me.
And my lily white ass has high blood pressure anyway. Maybe in my dotage I should embrace the salty side.
When the dust settled America realized it was saved by a porn star.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by PartTimeZombie on Sunday December 01 2019, @11:47PM (13 children)
Tumeric is great in cooking, but the health benefits are probably nonsense.
Usually when something is an "anti-oxident" or even worse "detoxs" the body it is a scam.
The other rule of thumb I use is "Does Gweneth Paltrow sell it"? If the answer is yes, it's a scam.
I am glad however the good farmers of Nicaragua are getting out of the coffee business, which is horribly exploitative. I hope they make a lot of money selling snake oil to rich housewives.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 01 2019, @11:54PM (1 child)
the health benefits are probably nonsense.
It all depends on how you shit in the morning. If it feels good, eat it!
No, not the shit, you dummy!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 02 2019, @12:00AM
Guano is an all natural spice found on Batman's utility belt. Surely you agree with the culinary choice of the all American caped crusader.
(Score: 5, Informative) by stormwyrm on Monday December 02 2019, @12:14AM (1 child)
Indeed, there is no good scientific evidence that turmeric is good for anything but as a delicious spice:
https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/turmeric-tasty-in-curry-questionable-as-medicine/ [sciencebasedmedicine.org]
Intravenous use of turmeric derived curcumin has already led to one death:
https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/naturopathic-death-from-iv-turmeric/ [sciencebasedmedicine.org]
Numquam ponenda est pluralitas sine necessitate.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by PartTimeZombie on Monday December 02 2019, @01:39AM
I had never heard on IV turmeric, but now that I have I am not surprised.
There seems to be no depths to which the "natural remedies" people will not stoop.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by epitaxial on Monday December 02 2019, @12:25AM (6 children)
Does Tumeric even have much of a flavor? I thought it was mostly added for color.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 02 2019, @01:19AM
Turmeric is fed to H1-B workers to keep them productive. American globalised workforce wouldn't be profitable without Turmeric curry eaters.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Monday December 02 2019, @01:32AM
It does have a flavour, but it is often drowned out by too much chili (IMHO).
(Score: 4, Informative) by takyon on Monday December 02 2019, @02:19AM (2 children)
It has a distinct flavor. Try making yellow rice with turmeric, garlic powder, onion powder, pepper, salt.
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(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Monday December 02 2019, @07:16PM (1 child)
Also, don't use that 5 year old bottle you got for Indian food that one time.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday December 02 2019, @07:23PM
Haha. I go through it fast.
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(Score: 4, Interesting) by stormwyrm on Monday December 02 2019, @02:52AM
Numquam ponenda est pluralitas sine necessitate.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 02 2019, @05:17AM
It's believed to have antibiotic property according to the traditional indian medicine (ayurveda). Bandaids with the gauze sprinkled with turmeric is sold there.
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Monday December 02 2019, @12:38PM
I find the smugness of TFA annoying as well "some 3,000 years after they were first set down in the Atharva Veda"
Next up we all go around cutting off each others bits "having suddenly and belatedly awakened to castration's benefits some 3,000 after they were first set down in the Old Testament, one of christianity's foundational sacred texts" (or whatever other silly stuff is in these religious texts).
(Score: 2) by Pslytely Psycho on Monday December 02 2019, @05:57PM
https://pics.me.me/when-i-said-that-the-spice-must-flow-ididnt-mean-53117406.png [pics.me.me]
Alex Jones lawyer inspires new TV series: CSI Moron Division.