🥵 Basics
Important Terms
What are spices?
- In the culinary arts, the word spice refers to any dried part of a plant, other than the leaves, used for seasoning and flavoring a recipe, but not used as the main ingredient.
- The leaves are not considered to be spices because the green leafy parts of plants used in this way are considered herbs.
- Every other part of the plant, including dried bark, roots, berries, seeds, twigs, or anything else that isn’t the green leafy part, is considered a spice.
- Examples:
- Cinnamon is the bark of a tree.
- Cardamom is a seed pod
- All spice is a dried berry
- Cloves are dried flower buds
- Spices are used in dried form while herbs can be used either fresh or dried.
Institutes Related to Spieces
- CSIR-Central Institute of Medicinal and Aromatic Plants (CSIR-CIMAP),
Lucknow - It is not an ICAR institution but it is under Council of Scientific & Industrial Research.