An entire world of spices is waiting to be uncovered by bold cooks. Cooking these days can seldom do without spices from the East. These items can really make or break your cooking. Spices come from across the world and these days you can give your food a taste of the exotic very easily and inexpensively. If you want to cook a spicy Indian curry you would use spices like curry powder, curry leaves, cinnamon sticks and ginger. These spices give Indian/Thai/Asian dishes their characteristic colours and flavours.
If you visit the original spice island you will find many marvelous and exotic varieties of spice. Coriander, ginger and lemongrass are at the heart of Cambodian and Thai cooking. Similarly in France gourmet culinary experts use Vanilla Pod, garlic and basil in a lot of dishes. The Caribbean Islands offer jerk seasonings such as allspice, celery salt, hot chilli powder, crushed red pepper, paprika, turmeric, and thyme. If you like your food hot and spicy you should investigate Cajun based spice mixes. These are so hot that care should be exercised. They are usually made up of array of hot chilli powders with garlic nutmeg and cloves added in for a fuller rounded flavour.
Today there are literally hundreds of spices available. No doubt just go to your local oriental shop and you will realize the diversity on display. The cost of a spice can range from a few cents a kilo to thousands of dollars per kg. The spice Saffron, Botanical name Crocus Sativus, is the most valuable spice in the world. It is derived from the dried source plant of the purple Saffron Crocus and takes up to 300,000 flowers to make one pound of Saffron. Just to produce one kg of Saffron is no easy feat. The flowers have to be picked at a specific time of year and by hand to boot. It is most fortunate that in the cooking process only a tiny amount of Saffron is required to flavour and colour a dish that contains it. If you add an excessive amount of it then the dish can become bitter in taste.
The second priciest spice in the world Vanilla which is derived from Tahitian Vanilla Beans. The flavour imparted by Vanilla Pod is fruity with subtle balsamic undertones. You can see it used in a huge number of foods from ice-cream through to chocolate cakes. Due to its high price there are quite a few synthetic variants of Vanilla available on the market. Even though this is the case it is very difficult for these productsto approach the product quality and flavour one would get from using true Mexican Vanilla Beans or products resulting from Mexican Vanilla Beans. Even though various companies are working night and day to improve quality there is no way the synthetic Vanilla flavours are able to replicate the subtle flavours that come from using Organic Vanilla Beans or products made from Vanilla Pod .

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