by Nancy L. Nelson, from the December 1999 Newsletter

Vikings had a fondness for cardamom. Of the many spices they carried home to Scandinavia, they especially liked this strong, exotic spice and used it in festival-day cakes. Today's bakers are happy to satisfy the Viking palate, especially this time of year. Soft sweet breads and darkly spicy cookies offer warm memories of celebrations in the northern European tradition. Cardamom has a warm, lemony flavor that goes well with many of the cinnamon-ginger-clove combinations we enjoy this time of year. Although it is one of the most expensive spices on the Co-op shelves (it costs $22 a pound), a few cents' worth will spice a batch of cookies or flavor a fruit dessert. Besides, the Co-op's price for cardamom is about half that of most grocery stores in town, which only carry ground cardamom.

While the Vikings used cardamom for sweet rolls, the cultures where cardamom is native developed a very different approach to the spice. In India and Sri Lanka, cooks use it to flavor rice and complex curries, and frequently the food is spicy hot.

But the Arabs, who carried cardamom and other spices halfway around the word to sell at a large profit, are the greatest cardamom lovers. Arab coffee is heavily flavored with cardamom—sometimes to the point of having more cardamom than coffee. Some preparations use two teaspoons of cardamom seeds for each small cup of the sweet, fragrant coffee.

The coffee ritual in Arabian countries begins with green coffee beans, which are roasted and then crushed in a mortar and pestle. The ground coffee is boiled with cardamom seeds, sugar and sometimes a pinch of saffron or cloves. The liquid is strained and for a final flavor boost, poured through cardamom pods as it is served.

To add a bit of cardamom flavor to coffee at home, grind a cardamom pod with the coffee beans, or add some ground cardamom to already ground coffee before brewing.

Thanks to their taste for cardamom coffee, as well as cardamom in many foods, Arabian countries have consumed an estimated 80 percent of the world's cardamom annual production in some years.

Although cardamom is native to India and Sri Lanka, the largest commercial producer today is Guatemala, which started growing the spice in the 1920s. In some areas of the country, cardamom has replaced coffee as the most important crop.

The green cardamom pods sold at the Co-op are Guatemalan and offer the best cardamom flavor if you are willing to crush or grind the seeds. Mortar and pestle are excellent low-tech spice grinding tools. They are also useful for mashing and combining fresh herbs—pesto gets its name from this technique. But if you don't have a mortar and pestle, the Co-op sells high-quality ground cardamom. White cardamom pods with bleached outer husks are also available at other stores, but some food writers find the bleaching process diminishes the cardamom flavor and can make it taste somewhat salty and bitter.

The green pods are dried in the sun after hand harvesting from Elettaria cardamom, a tall perennial and member of the ginger family. Although the plant is easily grown in warm climates, its production is small, contributing to the high price of cardamom.

The following spice cookie recipe is from Latvia and includes an impressive list of spices including pepper, which gives it its name, "Piparkukas," or pepper cookies. It makes a thin, almost cracker-like cookie with a wonderful spicy taste. The dough cures for a week before baking, so plan ahead.

Piparkukas

1/3 cup honey
1/2 cup dark molasses
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup butter
3 tbsp. shortening
4 3/4 cups flour, divided in half
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 - 1 tsp. ginger
1/2 tsp. white pepper
1/2 tsp. cloves
1/2 tsp. fresh grated nutmeg
1/2 tsp. cardamom
1/2 tsp. coriander
2 eggs, beaten
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
slivered almonds
1 egg, beaten

Bring first five ingredients to a boil and blend well. Mix together half the flour and all the spices. Fold flour mixture into butter mixture with a wooden spoon until well blended. Cool. Add eggs.

In a small bowl, mix remaining flour with baking soda and powder. When other mixture is completely cool, added remaining flour mixture. Knead by hand to incorporate and until dough is shiny. Cover tightly and refrigerate for at least a week.

To bake, roll out quite thin (about 1/8 to 1/16 of an inch thick). Cut in desired shapes. Decorate with almonds. Brush cookies with beaten egg and bake at 400 degrees until light brown, about 5 minutes. Cookies will be crunchy. Store in an airtight container.

Copyright: Copyright on articles and recipes are jointly held by the Moscow Food Co-op and the respective authors, except were otherwise noted.

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