KOCHI (Commodity Online):Cardamom prices are soaring above Rs 800 in Kerala and Tamilnadu thanks to lower supplies from the other major supplier of this spice-Guatemala. This is also reflected in the export figures released by Spices Board. In April-October 2009, cardamom (small) variety has increased to 620 tonnes from 310 tonnes during the same period in 2008 while Cardamom (large) variety exports has fallen to 550 tonnes from 975 tonnes.
The auctions held at Bodinayakannur witnessed higher price realisation for cardamom as arrivals hae fallen and oveseas enquiries are still strong despite the higher price due to global supply shortages, trade sources.
The demand has been so strong that the entire quantity of material estimated at 398 tonnes arrived at auctions last week were sold out. The arrival at the Sunday auction held by the KCPMC at Vandanmettu was at 84.5 tonnes and the entire quantity was sold out.
India always had an upper hand in the third most expensie spiece after vanilla and saffron until Guatemala emerged in the scene as a low cost producer and major supplier to Saudi Arabia where it is consumed along with coffee. Saudi Arabian consumption is 60 times higher than in the United States, Russia and England. Therefore, the critical factor sustaining the Indian cardamom prices is not just the Guatemalan short supply but increased world-wide demand for the spice especially in Middle East, market analysts point out.
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Cardamom was part of the everyday cuisine of the ancient Romans. It has long been used to add flavour and character to mulled wine. Its peppery taste pairs well with fish, rice, eggs, pickles and desserts. In France cardamom has been used since the Crusades, particularly to provide a fresh flavour to pâtés.
The Indian 'elaichi'India because of its unique flavour, it is added to curry, pullaos and biryanis. Lamb and mutton dishes are sprinkled with a little ground cardamom a few minutes before serving and kept covered. Cardamom is ground when used to flavour desserts, as in shrikand - yogurt - or in refreshing drinks such as almond flavoured thandai. In southwest Asia, people chew betel leaves flavoured with cardamom, the eastern seeds of Paradise.
Its use differs from one continent to another, but geographically there are two main schools that account for half of the world's cardamom consumption:
Scandinavians like to sprinkle cardamom into ground meats, sausages and breads, sweet rolls and desserts, particularly in Sweden and Finland where consumption is 25 times higher than in the United States, Russia and England - nor do they neglect to sprinkle it into their mulled wine which is sipped on cold winter days.
In Germany and Russia, cardamom has been used in liqueurs since 1560, when Ambrosien Vermollen, a Dutch Protestant immigrant to Danzig, created a liqueur from the seeds.
There are three typical kinds of cardamom grown in our country -Malabar, Mysore and Ceylon type. The major traded varieties of small cardamom in the Globe are the Malabar and the Guatemalan. Indian cardamom is slightly smaller, but most popular because of its aroma. Cardamom is a native plant of parts of India, Sri Lanka and parts of southeast Asia, where it occurs in the wild.
Cardamom first appeared in Europe after the scientists attached to the staff of Alexander the Great sent it back from India in the fourth century BC. Alexander had plants and other specimens sent to his tutor, Aristotle, and it was Aristotle's successor, Theophrastes, "the father of botany," who first mentioned cardamom in the West.
It was later used in Rome to make perfume. When Roman trade collapsed after the empire's fall, cardamom, too, disappeared from Europe. It reappeared only in the early Middle Ages when the Crusaders returned from the Middle East, bringing with them—among many other comforts—spices used for medicinal and culinary purposes. In Scandinavia, Germany and Russia, cardamom is still commonly used in breads, cakes and pastries, though it has not been as warmly accepted elsewhere in Europe.
Long before cardamom's 20th-century arrival in Guatemala—indeed, some 2000 years before Europeans set foot in the New World—it was among the spices carried from India to the Middle East by Arabian mariners and caravan traders. Like many spices, it was used as a medicine well before it found culinary uses. The Ebers Papyrus, a pharmacological document dating from about 1550 BC, provides evidence that Egyptians were already using cardamom, as well as other spices, in medicines; they also used it in cosmetic ointments, perfumes and aromatic oils, for fumigation and for embalming.
Cardamom in Guatemala first became a big crop on the volcanic slopes of the Pacific coast, but then a virus wiped out those plantations," Topke says. Most production, he adds, then moved north from the coast to Alta Verapáz, the humid, mountainous region where higher altitude, it turned out, helped increase yields.
India's present annual production of cardamom hovers around 9000 tonnes per annum and Spices Board has set an ambitious replantation scheme to boost annual production to 24,000 tonnes.
