This podcast is dedicated to uncovering the story of those most favoured of Sri Lankan spices that came to the island – just like tourists.  And then stayed. 

On the distant streets of the Old Bailey in London stands F. W. Pomeroy's famous 1906 statue of Justice hanging above the entrance to Central Criminal Court. The vast and gilded Amazonian holds in one hand the sword of justice and in the other the finely balanced scales of justice. And is in in thinking how Sri Lanka’s spice history might best fit into these scales that this distant statue comes to mind. 

On one side of the scales you might imagine lie the enticing black and red gold of the island’s indigenous pepper and cinnamon. These were the spices that drew in European colonists, enabling them to make untold profits and to better establish their sprawling foreign empires. And on the other, side of the scales are those spices – such as chilli, nutmeg, and vanilla - that the Europeans introduced to the island. 

It is of course an invidious comparison. Imperial apologists would want to throw in all sorts of other things from railways to constitutions, tea to telephones. Nationalists would meet each opening with equal or better examples to prove the opposite. It is a bill that remains in pyretic calculation. But for foodies and spice enthusiasts what remains, even before the cost is reckoned, is the exuberant existence of the spices themselves, however they arrived. 

Remarkably, though, it was Arab traders, not European colonists who made the greatest impact on the island’s spice heritage – if measured in terms of variety, range, and application. For it was through them that the final nine or so other spices so critical to the country’s character, first arrived: cloves; cardamom; coriander; cumin; fenugreek; pandam leaves; fennel; tamarind; and ginger. For these traders, working the ports of the Indian Ocean from Africa to Indonesia, they filled what was empty and emptied what was filled. 

“Run, run as fast as you can! You can't catch me. I'm the Gingerbread Man!”  And nor can you – for there is nothing to touch the taste of ginger. Known in more formal circles as Zingiber Officinale, it is a cultigen - one of those rare species that has been so altered by mankind as to no longer exist in its original wild state. 

Originating from the rainforest islands of SE Asia, it has been modified to fit human culinary and medicinal needs. It probably arrived in Sri Lanka with Arab traders, but its travel schedule is so ancient as to be all but lost. The Rig Veda, which dates to around 1400 BCE and is the world’s oldest Vedic text, mentions ginger; and later ayurvedic books elaborate its medicinal qualities - to reduce indigestion and nausea, stimulate the respiratory and nervous system; and, by improving blood circulation, act as an aphrodisiac. Recent scientific studies that have tabulated sexual function, fertility, and testosterone levels suggest that there may be something in this. Western science has also set in train a wave of further forensic research into the clinical applications of ginger – in cancer control, menstrual pain, glucose levels and in treating arthritis.

It is an easy plant to grow, demanding dappled shade, well-drained soil, and high humidity. Rhizomes with green growth buds are planted in shallow depressions; and before long green leaves, sometimes up to ten feet high, spread out, accompanied by pink or white flowers so perfect in their construction as to look as if they have sprung from moulds. Within eight months the roots can be harvested and the process restarted. 

Our own ginger, grown with a carefully defence mindset to ward off attacks by rampaging wild boar, lives in stone beds in the Spice Garden. At ten billion dollars and growing the global market for ginger outsteps production and so prices are higher than they really need to be. The culinary form of ginger has two main variants: white ginger – either large of small, the smaller variant being preferred for cooking; and red ginger, which is preferred in medicine. All these variants have scores of sub variants. The pale yellow flesh of Chinese ginger for example is preferred for pickles; Rangoon Ginger for oils and perfumes; and Indian ginger, like the tiny account of ginger grown in Sri Lanka, is most favoured in cooking and drinks for its much stronger taste. Its sweet, and citrusy flavour, as well as its peppery heat, alter in its preparation. When raw it is at its most pungent; dried, it is at its hottest; and cooked, it is at its sweetest. 

From ginger cakes, and ginger beer to stir fry ginger beef, it is used in many dishes across the world – but perhaps none so celebrated as with Gingerbread men. England’s first Queen Elizabeth even had an official royal gingerbread maker whose only role it was to make such pasties, once famously creating edible clones of all the foreign dignitaries who assembled at her 16th century court. In Sri Lanka it is especially favoured in chicken and sambal dishes.

Older even than Harry Pottrer’s Dumbledore, Tamarind, native to Africa, has been growing in India and probably Sri Lanka since at least 1300 BCE, roughly the same time as the civilizations of the late Bronze age around the Mediterranean collapsed. It has godly properties, being included in the Book of Enoch, one of those texts that was banned from inclusion in the Bible; and in the Hindu Epic, the Ramayana, a text that Hindus believe dates back 1.2 million years; though scholars argue for a later date - around 5,000 BCE. Certainly, it was old enough to be included in some of the earliest Indian Ayurvedic texts – the Charaka Samhita, the Sushruta Samhita, and the Nighantus. Its very name appears to hint at its travel history, "tamarind" being derived from the Arabic phrase “tamar hindi” which meant "Indian date." Commonly added to ayurvedic medicines to treat constipation, digestive disorders, arthritis, blood disorders, wounds, and cell health, it is now undergoing deeper scientific studies for its pharmacological properties, helping with asthma, liver problems, diabetes, and dysentery.

Tamarind’s primary compound, tartaric acid, is what gives it its sour flavour – this characteristic being the reason it is so liked in Thai and Indian dishes for the gentle and complex layer of acidity it adds to curries, soups, stews, chutneys, sauces, as well as in desserts, and drinks. It pops up in Massaman, Rassam, and Pad Tha; in tamarind jam in Costa Rica; tamarind beer in the Bahamas and, since 1876, England’s legendary Lea & Perrins’ Worcestershire sauce. In Sri Lanka it is most widely used in fish, chicken, and pork curries. It grows as a long-living evergreen tree, reaching heights of eighty feet in good sun and well able to live through droughts. Lightly covered with pinnate leaves, its modest red and yellow flowers develop into hard six inch knobbly pods, the flesh within them being the best part of the tree to use. 

Its cousin, in bitterness at least, is fenugreek, a plant which, though originating in Turkey six thousand years ago, became so widespread as to appear with residential ease in the texts, medicines and recipes of the first Mesopotamian and Indian civilizations, as well as those of ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome. Use it, advised the Egyptian Ebers Papyrus in 1550 BCE, to embalm the dead, purify the air, and cleanse the tummy. A main component of ayurveda and traditional Chinese medicine, it was regarded with great suspicion by western medicine – until recently. It is now enjoying an investigative renaissance as labourites around the world probe its antidi...