Spice Facts

I realized last night during our train ride to Bangalore (the city of beans, there is apparently a long story about how it was given this name), I realized that I forgot to post my promised trivia about spice that we learned during our visit to an organic spice farm in Goa. Well, let me rectify that now!

The top five most expensive spices by weight are (in order of most expensive)
1. Saffron (the "gold" of spices)
2. Vanilla (the "silver" of spices)
3. Green cardamom
4. Cloves
5. Cinnamon (yeah, that one surprised me too!)

Almost all vanilla beans are exported to either the United States or the United Kingdom as they have refined methods of extracting the vanilla oil from the been. They have maximized it to about 90% of the oil, whereas developing industries in India can still only get about 10% (or less, can't remember exactly).

30% of the vanilla exported to the US goes directly to the Coca Cola company, as vanilla is a key ingredient in their secret formula!

Green, red, white, and black pepper actually all come from the same pepper--it all depends on how the pepper is dried and cured.

Bananas are the second largest grass (after bamboo) in the world. They are not trees.

There are both male and female pineapples. The juicy delicious yellow ones tend to be female, whereas the whiter and and not so succulent ones are male.

Now you know!