EEOB 4240 — Set 6: Spices and Flavorings

[Week 8] Frankincense and myrrh have been burned as incense in religious ceremonies for thousands of years. What part of the plant are they?
A. Dried flower petals
B. Hardened tree resin
C. Ground seed kernels
D. Shaved inner bark

B. Hardened tree resin. Frankincense and myrrh are fragrant resins from related trees native to Africa and Asia; burning them scents the air and symbolizes prayers rising upward. People have used spices and fragrances for at least 5,000 years (ancient Egypt) for ceremonies, embalming, food preservation, medicine, and flavoring.

[Week 8] Spices come from many different plant parts. Which pairing of spice and plant part is correct?
A. Cloves – seeds
B. Saffron – petals
C. Nutmeg – flower buds
D. Cinnamon – bark

D. Cinnamon – bark. Cinnamon is bark from trees in the laurel family, native from Sri Lanka and India to southern China. Cloves are flower buds, saffron is the stigmas, and nutmeg is the seed (mace is the red covering around that seed).

[Week 8] Nutmeg, a common baking spice made from the ground seed, can have psychoactive effects when eaten in large amounts.

True. Nutmeg is fine in normal cooking amounts but psychoactive in large amounts. This is an example of why the amount matters when deciding which plant products to eat.

[Week 8] Nutmeg and cloves originally came from the "Spice Islands." Where are these islands located today?
A. Indonesia
B. Sri Lanka
C. Madagascar
D. Philippines

A. Indonesia. The Spice Islands are the Maluku (Moluccas) Islands of Indonesia, the original source of nutmeg, mace, and cloves. Sri Lanka is linked to cinnamon, and Madagascar is known for modern vanilla production.

[Week 8] One European country eventually held a monopoly on the spice trade from the Spice Islands. Which development helped break that monopoly?
A. Portugal recaptured the islands
B. Demand for nutmeg collapsed
C. Spice plants were grown elsewhere
D. Synthetic copies replaced the spices

C. Spice plants were grown elsewhere. Portugal controlled the trade first; then the Dutch built a monopoly on nutmeg, cloves, cinnamon, and pepper that funded much of the Dutch Golden Age. The monopoly was broken by a Dutch–English war and by spice plants being smuggled out and grown in other places.

[Week 8] Which spice is the most important in world trade today when measured by amount?
A. Cinnamon bark
B. Black pepper
C. Clove buds
D. Saffron threads

B. Black pepper. Black pepper comes from a small tropical vine in the pepper family, native to tropical Asia. Green, black, and white pepper all come from this same plant. Saffron is the most expensive spice, not the most traded.

[Week 8] Vanilla was first used by indigenous peoples of Mexico. It is the only major flavoring that comes from which plant family?
A. Orchid family
B. Ginger family
C. Laurel family
D. Mint family

A. Orchid family. The vanilla "bean" is the fruit (a capsule), usually extracted in alcohol. Today Madagascar and Réunion are famous for vanilla, but there it must be hand-pollinated because the bee that pollinates it in Mexico doesn't live there.

[Week 8] Most of the vanilla flavoring used today is extracted from the fruit of the vanilla plant.

False. Only about 1% of vanilla flavoring comes from the plant. Most is synthetic vanillin (the key flavor compound), largely made from petrochemicals and sold as "artificial" vanilla.

[Week 8] Saffron is the most expensive spice in the world. What best explains its high price?
A. It grows wild only on remote islands
B. It must be hand-pollinated by workers
C. It is used mainly in costly perfumes
D. It is picked as tiny flower stigmas

D. It is picked as tiny flower stigmas. Saffron is the hand-harvested stigmas (female flower parts) of a crocus in the iris family, from the Mediterranean region. It takes about 210,000 stigmas to make one pound, and saffron gives a unique taste and yellow color.

[Week 8] Ginger, turmeric, and galangal belong to the same tropical family. Which plant part is used for all three?
A. Dried fruits
B. Inner bark
C. Underground stems
D. Flower buds

C. Underground stems. These ginger-family spices are rhizomes, which are underground stems rather than true roots. Cardamom is also in the ginger family, but its seed pods are used instead.

[Week 8] A cook seasons a dish with basil, rosemary, thyme, and oregano. All four herbs come from which plant family, many of whose members are native to the Mediterranean?
A. Carrot family
B. Mint family
C. Laurel family
D. Citrus family

B. Mint family. The mint family is the "king of fragrant-leaved plant families," and its leaves are the part used. Other members include peppermint, spearmint, sage, marjoram, and patchouli, a perfume plant from Southeast Asia.

[Week 8] Cilantro and coriander come from the same carrot-family plant. Which part of the plant is sold as coriander?
A. The leaves
B. The roots
C. The flowers
D. The fruits

D. The fruits. The carrot family has the second-most herbs after the mints. Some are leaves (cilantro, parsley, chervil, dill), and others are fruits sold as "seeds" (coriander, dill, fennel, cumin, caraway, anise), where the flavorful oils are concentrated.

[Week 8] Because the carrot family contains many culinary herbs, a wild plant that resembles dill or parsley is likely safe to eat.

False. The carrot family also includes water hemlock, a deadly poisonous plant of wet places in North America and Europe that causes seizures. It looks like edible relatives, so wild carrot-family plants should not be eaten based on resemblance.

[Week 8] Black pepper, chile peppers, and Szechuan pepper are closely related members of one plant family.

False. Black pepper is in the pepper family, chile peppers are in the nightshade family (with potatoes and tomatoes), and Szechuan pepper is in the citrus family. A shared common name doesn't mean the plants are related.

[Week 8] Chile peppers are central to Thai, Indian, and Chinese cooking today. Where did chile peppers originate?
A. Southeast Asia
B. The Mediterranean
C. South America
D. South Asia

C. South America. Chiles (nightshade family) originated in the lowlands of Brazil, and five species were domesticated in the Americas. Columbus brought them to Spain and they spread worldwide, so Asian chile cuisines developed only after that contact.

[Week 8] Wild chile peppers are small, round fruits whose seeds are spread mainly by birds. What is the most likely reason chiles evolved to be hot?
A. To stop mammals from eating the fruits
B. To attract the bees that pollinate them
C. To protect the fruits from cold damage
D. To help the seeds sprout in soil

A. To stop mammals from eating the fruits. Birds can't sense chile heat, so they still eat the fruits and spread the seeds, while the heat discourages mammals. Domestication later produced larger fruits with a wide range of heat levels.

[Week 8] A cook wants the flavor of a hot chile but with less heat. Which part of the pepper should they cut out?
A. The thin outer skin
B. The inner tissue holding seeds
C. The stem and green cap
D. The pointed lower tip

B. The inner tissue holding seeds. Most of the heat is in the placenta, the inner tissue where the seeds attach. The heat dissolves in fat rather than water, so milk or oily foods ease the burn better than drinking water.

[Week 8] Cooking onions makes their sharp flavor milder, and sautéing also adds a savory, browned flavor.

True. Heat lets onions' strong-flavored compounds react and mellow, and sautéing gets hot enough for browning (the Maillard reaction). Onions and relatives like garlic, leeks, and shallots have been grown for at least 7,000 years and are a near-universal base seasoni