Spice of life | Bangkok Post: food

Cardamom is one of Thailand's most popular and widely-used spices. Scan the spice shelves at any big supermarket and you will find it in powdered form marketed under many brand names and imported from several countries. Buyers probably think that the companies that sell powdered cardamom obtain it from India or Indonesia and package it at home. But if you visit a spice shop or traditional pharmacy and ask for cardamom you will be presented with small, fragrant, spherical white pods containing black seeds. Many people also think that these all come from India or Indonesia.

SPICE WORLD: Any cook’s selection of essential spices must include cardamom.

Cardamom is used in preparing several Thai dishes.

In the North, it is one of the seasonings that go into the Northern version of larb nuea, a minced beef dish. In the central and southern regions it is used to make kaeng massaman (a rich, mild curry that contains several aromatic spices), kaeng karee (a mild Thai version of an Indian curry), and kaeng phanaeng (a very thick, mild curry rich with coconut cream). In Chinese cooking it is one of the spices used to make phalo dishes, and the pods are simmered in the broth for kui tio nuea (beef noodles).

Despite its prevalence in Thai recipes, few people seem to realise that cardamom is a Thai product. Thailand ranks with India and Indonesia as a major producer of the spice.

It is also valued as a medicinal herb in some parts of the country, and grows in the Khao Phu Soi Dao area of Chanthaburi province and in certain parts of southern Thailand.

Khao Phu Soi Dao cardamom is considered the best, because the area where it is grown is 400m above sea level. The soil there is thick and covered with dense vegetation that includes tall trees, a lower stratum of bushes and smaller trees, and plants that grow close to or on the ground. The growing environment for the lowest plants is moist and the soil is rich in minerals.

SOME LIKE IT HOT: A spicy beef stir-fry that includes tender cardamom rhizome as a vital ingredient.

The cardamom plant belongs to the medium-height group. The trunk of the plant is tall and the leaves are long (like those of galangal). The fruits form at the base of the plant. The cardamom plant likes light but not direct sunlight. It prefers a moist environment but needs good drainage.

Aram Attajadi, a deputy professor at Rajamangala University's Chanthaburi campus, believes that the cardamom from Khao Phu Soi Dao is the finest not only in Thailand, but in the world.

''Although the usual name for this spice is 'cardamom','' he said, ''the cardamom that comes from Thailand is known as 'best cardamom' or 'Siam cardamom'. It was given this name by Westerners. In the past Western traders who came to Asia to obtain herbs and spices always went to India, Indonesia and Malaysia, not to Thailand. It was only the Chinese traders who came here by crossing the South China Sea and circumnavigating Vietnam and Cambodia to dock at Chanthaburi. The only ships that went to Chanthaburi belonged to the spice and herb traders; the ones that traded in other kinds of merchandise went to Ayutthaya or Bangkok.

''The Chinese took the Thai spices to sell in the Middle East and from there they were distributed in Western countries. The feeling of spicy heat from the Thai cardamom made it more highly valued then cardamom from other sources,'' he said, which is why it became deemed ''the best''.

Concerning the method used by the local people to harvest the cardamom, Mr Aram added, ''In the past villagers in Chanthaburi would only gather cardamom pods that were completely ripe. Since rainfall was heavy in the Khao Soi Dao range, they would bake them dry in a temporary building using a wood fire, so that the quality was very good.'' Cardamom was considered a very valuable natural resource.

There is one fact connected with cardamom that can cause confusion. The Thai word for the spice is krawan, and there is another seasoning, a leaf that looks like a bay leaf, that is used in Thai cooking and that is called a bai krawan, or cardamom leaf.

It is actually no such thing, as the leaf of the cardamom plant is long and pointed like that of galangal or ginger.

Many Thai cooks actually believe that the bay leaf-like seasoning comes from the same plant as cardamom, and in the newer Thai cookbooks it is common to find the Thai word krawan followed by ''bay leaf'' in parentheses, although they are two very different things. This belief persists among chefs and cookbook writers in Bangkok.

It is a misconception that is not shared by the people of Chanthaburi, who call the bai krawan bai theptharo, referring to the plant in the cinnamon family, Cinnamomum porrectum, that is related to the evergreen bay laurel that provides the bay leaves used in Western cooking. They understand the difference in a way that most people in Bangkok do not.

One dish that has become popular in Chanthaburi is made by taking a piece of the rhizome of the cardamom plant (which looks like galangal) and including it in a spicy beef stir-fry. This dish only started to become widely know about 20 years ago, and had its roots at a ''jungle food'' restaurant in the Khao Soi Dao area. There, tender cardamom rhizome was sliced and included as an ingredient in the hot curry called kaeng pa and in pad phet dishes (spicy stir-fries). It added the kind of heat that Thais call phet rawn, the sensation that comes with eating, for example, black pepper, which causes a feeling of warmth together with the chilli-like bite.

Today offerings made with cardamom rhizome are available in almost every part of Chanthaburi province, and the stir-fry made with beef is always among them.

This may help clear up the confusion that some Bangkok Thais experience when the language leads them to associate cardamom pods and bay leaves with the same plant.

Further enlightenment can be found by going to Chanthaburi and experiencing both its natural riches and its cooking.