Cardamom

A clumping perennial six to ten feet tall with long, narrow leaves on reed-like stems. Flower stalks creep along the ground from the base, bearing white flowers striped with purple, followed by small, three-sided green pods. Each pod holds 15 to 20 small, dark, aromatic seeds.

Black cardamom (Amomum subulatum) is a different plant with larger, smoky-tasting pods used in savory dishes.

Cardamom was traded from India to the ancient Near East and is mentioned in early Ayurvedic texts; Greek physicians knew it as a digestive spice. The Cardamom Hills of Kerala were the center of the trade for centuries.

A German coffee planter brought cardamom to Guatemala before the First World War, and since the late 1970s Guatemala has rivaled or passed India as the largest producer, though Guatemalans themselves rarely cook with it. Most of that crop goes to the Arabian Gulf for coffee.

Cardamom needs warmth, shade, humidity, and rich, moist soil, and it rarely fruits outside the tropics. In dry climates it makes a handsome, fragrant-leaved houseplant or patio plant in shade; the leaves can be used to wrap and flavor food.

Pods are sold by grade and origin: ‘Malabar’ and ‘Mysore’ types from India, and Guatemalan cardamom. Grow it as a houseplant alongside ginger and turmeric.

Pods are picked just before they ripen, while still green, and dried to keep their color. Buy whole pods and grind the seeds just before using; ground cardamom loses its scent quickly.

Chewing a few cardamom seeds after meals freshens the breath and settles the stomach, and it is a standard ingredient in Indian after-dinner mixes. A pinch goes into warm milk at bedtime.

Crush pods into chai and coffee, rice pudding, kheer, and biryani. Grind the seeds for cardamom buns, cookies, and Indian sweets. Arabic coffee (qahwa) is brewed with a generous amount of ground cardamom.

Seeds and pods as spice, chew, and in tea. In Ayurveda cardamom is used for poor appetite, nausea and vomiting, bad breath, cough and breathing difficulty, and difficult urination.

Ayurveda (sukshmaila, small cardamom): sweet and pungent taste, cooling potency, sweet post-digestive effect; a carminative and digestive that is gentle enough for all constitutions.

Cardamom’s oil is dominated by α-terpinyl acetate and 1,8-cineole, which give it its sweet, cool, eucalyptus-like scent, along with linalool, limonene, and other terpenes.

There are only a few small human studies of cardamom, mostly from India and Iran, looking at blood pressure, blood sugar, and inflammation markers; results are encouraging but preliminary.

Cardamom in food is safe. People with gallstones are sometimes advised to avoid large medicinal doses.

If a recipe calls for “cardamom seeds,” split the pod and use the black seeds inside; the husk is mostly flavorless.