Last week I was talking to a friend of mine
who had just arrived
back from the University of Upsala
in Sweden, where she had been
doing some research on mosses.
Being of like mind the
conversation quickly got around
to food, particularly recipes
characteristic of various countries.
One thing in particular she
noticed was the number of recipes
that contained no herbs or
spices, apart from salt,
and those that had only a very few ;
possibly an onion.
pepper or parsley, often in combination.
Comparing various
other countries, we had each visited, a trend
seemed to emerge. Other cool to temperate countries
tended to
have recipes with few herbs and where they
were used was always
“cool” whereas various tropical
dishes inevitably contained many
spices, particularly those of
a hot nature. Was there any reason
for this difference?
A few days later while I was searching a couple
of scientific data-
bases, I came across a most interesting
article that gave me a
fascinating explanation for our
herbs and spices query. The
authors found, In a
comparison of food dishes from a range of
countries,
there is a marked increase in the regular use of spices
and herbs used from cool to hot climates. The average
number of
spices used in cool countries ( Finland,
Norway etc. ) 33% of
meat recipes did not
use spices or herbs yet in hot countries (
India,
Indonesia, Central America ) every meat dish was
spiced and
herbed with an average of 3.9 different types.
This paper sampled
ethnic
and cultural foods from 36 countries, representing
a range of
hot and humid to cold and dry, from which they
extracted 4578
meat recipes from 96 cookbooks.
Apart from highly unusual
ingredients a total of 43 spices
were compared. The researchers
were
looking for the reason different
spices are used and why.
Some amazing results came to light.
As everybody knows
spices and herbs are basically plant
parts from particular species
that have protected themselves
against pests and diseases by
producing various chemicals
that are incorporated into their
tissues, usually in the flowers,
seed and food storage organs, such
as tap roots.
Many of these spices have been found to have
remarkable
bacterial , fungal and parasitic inhibitory powers plus
biochemical stimulating properties.
Tested by 13 independent
microbiologists onions, garlic, pimento
( allspice ) and oregano, together, inhibited all
tested surface
bacterial pathogens including all the major
classes of food poisoning bacteria.
To me one of the
interesting spices was pepper and its ability to
inhibit
one of the most lethal of bacteria, Clostridium botulinum.
The toxins produced by these beasties are amongst the
most
toxic poisons known to man. This bacteria requires high
protein
foods, meat and fish, and thrives in packed airless
conditions..
European sausages ( botulus in Latin) have
been instrumental in
fatally poisoning thousands of people
since they started to be
made.
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