Spices such as star anise, cinnamon, cumin... This is how they grow!
Today, let me explain to you how our common spices look when they are fresh and growing on trees.
Star Anise
Star anise is a famous seasoning and is also used in medicine.
It is also known as star aniseed, big aniseed, or badiane.
The fruit peel, seeds, and leaves all contain essential oil.
It is an important ingredient in the cosmetics, sweet wine, beer, and food industries.
In fact, star anise when it is growing on trees, is lush and tender, you can squeeze out water from it.
It's kind of like chestnuts and walnuts.
Lastly, a reminder for everyone.
Some unscrupulous merchants sell the fruits of false star anise as genuine star anise, using plants such as Mongolian wormwood, red aniseed, and maple bark.
These fake star anise can cause varying degrees of harm to our bodies.
Be careful when purchasing.
Cinnamon
Cinnamon, also known as cassia, official cinnamon, or fragrant cinnamon.
It is one of the earliest used spices by humans.
It is commonly used as a fragrant seasoning, and can also be extracted to obtain cinnamon oil, an important spice in the food industry, and is also used in medicine.
So what does cinnamon look like when it's growing on trees?
Well, as the name suggests, it's the bark of the cinnamon tree.
Here's what a "live" cinnamon tree looks like:
Cassia Seed
Cassia seeds, like cinnamon, are derived from the bark of the cinnamon tree.
Cassia seeds are the immature fruits of cinnamon. When dried, they look like this:
Amomum
Amomum is often found in the seasoning mix for braised dishes.
Amomum is a perennial herb of the ginger family, with stems growing up to 3 meters high, and the whole plant has a fragrant aroma.
Can you believe these two pictures are of the same plant?
Bay Leaf
Bay leaf is the leaf of the sweet laurel tree in the Lauraceae family.
It is a popular spice used for pickling, marinating, stewing, stuffing, and fish dishes.
Sweet laurel is native to the Mediterranean coast and has been cultivated since ancient times.
In ancient Greece, laurel leaves were made into flower crowns and worn by victorious athletes.
It has a fragrant taste, but slightly bitter.
The flowers of the laurel tree are golden yellow.
From a distance, they look like fluffy little balls.
Cumin
Cumin is also known as dried cumin or small fennel in southern Xinjiang.
It is mainly distributed in India, Iran, Turkey, Egypt, China, and Central Asia in Russia.
As the king of seasonings, it is suitable for cooking meat and can also be used as a spice.
Cumin fruits can be used in medicine to treat indigestion and stomach pain caused by cold.
It has high medicinal and culinary value.
The petals are pink or white, elongated, with flowers blooming in April and fruits ripening in May.
This is what a cumin plant looks like:
Licorice
Strictly speaking, licorice is a Chinese medicinal material.
But in China, we have always had the habit of using "medicated diet".
We use ingredients such as coix seed and sand ginseng to boil chicken soup.
Licorice is also an ingredient that some families use when cooking soup.
Chinese medicine uses the dried roots and rhizomes of the licorice plant.
Fresh licorice looks like this:
What do you think?
Now you know what our commonly used spices look like before they are dried, right?
Not only are they used in cooking, but some perfume formulas also include spices such as chili and Sichuan pepper.
It's really hard for us ordinary people to imagine.
