Food History

Ian Hemphill can’t remember when herbs and spices were not a part of his life. The younger son of John and Rosemary Hemphill, who pioneered Australia’s love of herbs and spices in the 1950’s, Ian earned his pocket money picking herbs and remembers many a season when the family home was strewn with bunches of drying culinary produce. Ian worked with his parents for many years, managed a spice company in Singapore and was a senior manager for a multinational food company in Australia. In 1997 Ian and his wife Liz opened a specialty spice shop in the Sydney suburb of Rozelle, which bears the nickname Ian has had since school days…..Herbie’s. Herbie is now enjoying sharing his extensive knowledge and experience in the books he has written and the classes he gives to his customers at Herbie’s Spices.
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The adulteration of food is nothing new and this is something that has been going on for centuries, especially with respect to spices. After all, the spice trade is the world’s second oldest profession! When a commodity has high value, the temptation for unscrupulous traders to reduce their costs by adulterating the original is sometimes too hard to resist. And, the clever adulteration of expensive commodities has become somewhat of an art form in itself. Following are a few spices and the tricks that have been perpetrated on unsuspecting customers.

Saffron:
Consumer protection laws are nothing new, and it seems that offences relating to the adulteration of saffron (the stigma hand plucked from an autumn flowering crocus) have earnt the perpetrators some of the most severe punishments for transgression ever witnessed. Because of its high value, saffron is the most adulterated, copied and misrepresented spice known. In Germany in the 15th century, the adulteration of saffron was taken so seriously that there was a committee called the Safranschau, a group of inquisitors who punished ‘adulterers’ and dispensed justice by burning offenders at the stake or burying them alive with their impure spice. Such harsh penalties only acted as a minor deterrent, as human nature is difficult to change when it comes to maximising profits. I am starting to think that the adulteration of saffron has become as much an art form today as it was in the 15th century. There are still instances of saffron stamens (the useless part), safflower petals, dyed saffron petals, turmeric, cornsilk, dyed coconut fibre, red-coloured extruded strands and dark-red gelatine strips all being passed off as saffron, especially to unsuspecting tourists. In recent times, the proliferation of fake gelatin-like saffron has become so widespread I am convinced many of the spice traders in markets from Marrakech, to Cochin to Istanbul don’t even realise themselves that they are selling fake material. A case of the con man being conned.

Cloves:
How do you distinguish between adulteration and the even cleverer method of lowering a product cost, but not actually adding a foreign substance? Cloves, the dried unopened flower buds of a tropical evergreen tree, are often cleverly adulterated with lower cost parts of the plant. For example, the clove bud is attached to the clove tree by a short stem, that when dried, contains far less volatile oil than the clove itself. Therefore, grinding 20% or more of clove stems (which have almost no commercial value) with the cloves will reduce the cost (and quality) of ground cloves considerably. Another dodgy trick is to boil the cloves in water to remove some of the clove oil, a valuable commodity that can be sold, and then dry the cloves again. These boiled cloves will be lighter in colour and less aromatic than the real deal. When buying whole cloves look for ones that are dark in colour, have no stick-like stems included and have a pungent fragrance. For ground cloves, be suspicious if the powder is pale, fibrous and the aroma not very strong.

Tomorrow: nutmeg, cumin and spice blends