the dried fruit of a perennial herb, Elettaria cardamomum, is the third most expensive spice, after saffron and vanilla. The plant, indigenous to S. India and Sri Lanka, belongs to the ginger family.
As far back as the 4th century bc the Greeks were buying spices called amomon and kardamomon, and later Greek and Roman writers distinguish varieties of both; but from the descriptions by Dioscorides and Pliny it is not clear which of them, if any, was what we would now call true cardamom.
It is certain, however, that cardamoms of the true kind have been an article of trade with India and Sri Lanka for about a thousand years. India is at present the largest producer; Guatemala comes second, Sri Lanka and Tanzania rank third, while other countries, including Papua New Guinea, produce on a smaller scale.
The fruits, which are three angled and ovoid or oblong, are picked before they are fully ripe (when they would be apt to split) and cured by drying, after which they should be hard and of a good green colour. Some are bleached before sale, a practice which perhaps began as a means of disguising poor coloration but which now seems to be responsive to the demand of certain markets. Each fruit contains three cells in which there are numerous small seeds. These seeds, which turn from white to brown to black as the fruit ripens, provide the pleasing aroma of cardamom, and its warm, slightly pungent flavour. The essential oil which can be distilled from them contains cineole, which is responsible for a eucalyptus-like note in the flavour.
The emphasis placed above on ‘true’ cardamom suggests that there are other kinds, i.e. ‘false’ cardamoms. As explained below, there are lots of these. However, from the point of view of the cook, the important distinction is between the green (or white, if they have been bleached) cardamom fruits (the true ones) and the larger brown or black fruits which come from some of the other species.
Green cardamoms are normally used for flavouring sweetmeats, desserts, and tea, notably in India and W. Asia, or in certain delicate savoury dishes. In addition, a popular and traditional use is to chew them as a breath-cleanser; and they are also regarded as a good digestive (when taken, for example, in sweet green tea after a meal). The brown or black cardamoms, which are coarser in taste and aroma and tend to smell of camphor, are used more in meat and vegetable dishes, pickles, and as a flavouring for a pilaf (e.g. in Afghanistan).
Both black and green cardamoms are among the spices used in Asian spice mixtures such as garam masala.
In Arab countries cardamom is mainly employed as a flavouring for coffee. Its use in Europe has been most noticeable in Scandinavia and Germany, where it is added as a flavouring to various baked goods, and also to some pickles.
When whole cardamoms are used to flavour dishes, they are not meant to be eaten; but when the seeds, or ground seeds, are used, they are of course consumed.
What are sold as cardamoms in western countries are normally true cardamoms, but distinguishing between the commercial categories of these, and the various ‘cardamoms’ of commerce in other parts of the world, is complicated by three factors.
First, the species which provides the true cardamom, E. cardamomum, comprises two botanically recognized varieties, E. cardamomum var cardamomum and E. cardamomum var major. The former is, strictly speaking, the only true one. The latter is the wild cardamom of Sri Lanka, has larger fruits, and is less highly esteemed.
Secondly, distinctions are made by region of origin. The Malabar and Mysore types of true cardamom differ in the composition of their volatile oils and therefore in their organoleptic qualities, which are also affected by the presence of sugar in the mucilage surrounding the seeds of Mysore cardamoms and its absence in those from Malabar.
Thirdly, there are the ‘false cardamoms’, some closely related to the true cardamom and sharing to some extent its desirable characteristics, others further removed and less satisfactory as substitutes. Burkill (1965–6) commented that if the word ‘cardamom’ is used in its widest sense it refers to various species of no fewer than six genera of plants. It is in this large category that the big brown cardamom fruits, referred to above, are found. Among those listed by Purseglove et al. (1981) are:
The confusion sometimes extends to melegueta pepper, a quite different spice.
Alan Davidson was a distinguished author and publisher, and one of the world's best-known writers on fish and fish cookery. In 1975 he retired early from the diplomatic service—after serving in, among other places, Washington, Egypt, Tunisia, and Laos, where he was British Ambassador—to pursue a fruitful second career as a food historian and food writer extraordinaire. Among his popular books are Seafood of South-East Asia, North Atlantic Seafood, and Mediterranean Seafood. In 2003, shortly before his death, he was awarded the Erasmus Prize for his contribution to European culture.
