Our Indian and Mediterranean dishes aren’t just delicious—they’re also packed with ingredients and spices that are good for your body! Here’s a look at five of our most commonly used spices at Cedars—at least a few of these are in every dish!
Ginger
Ginger is one of the world’s favorite homeopathic roots. Incredibly versatile, it can be used fresh, dried, powered, or as a juice, and its bright, spicy flavor is a welcome addition to almost any dish. Traditionally, ginger has been used to treat gastrointestinal symptoms, such as bloating, vomiting, and nausea caused by cancer treatment, stomach issues, pregnancy, or motion sickness. Adding ginger to a dish helps aid digestion.
Turmeric
Turmeric is a warm, peppery spice that’s reminiscent or orange, ginger, or mustard, and is bright yellow in color, hence its nickname “Indian saffron.” Turmeric comes from the rhizomes of the Curcuma long plant, native to Southeast Asia and China. It has been used as an anti-inflammatory for ages, making it effective against stomach issues and bloating and also arthritis, Inflammatory Bowel Disease, fibromyalgia and Crohn’s.
Cumin
Cumin is a dried seed, usually ground into a power or roasted whole. It’s one of the most ancient spices—cumin seeds have been excavated from Syrian temples as early as the second millennium BC, and cumin was used to embalm mummies in ancient Egypt. It’s popular in cuisines from the Middle East to Asia to Europe to even Tex-Mex; its warm, earthy flavor adds a comforting spiciness to any dish. Cumin aids digestion and increases appetite, is effective against all aspects of hemorrhoids, and contains many anti-oxidants and essential oils that help with stress, anxiety, memory, and aging.
Clove
This warm, nutty, almost cinnamon-like spice is the highest source of the dietary mineral manganese available—one serving of cloves will provide you with 127 percent your daily value of manganese, which is necessary both for bone production and for maintaining healthy, collagen-producing skin. Cloves come from the dried flower bud of the Southern Indian evergreen tree and are often used topically in the mouth to reduce pain, kill the germs causing bad breath, and speed healing of lesions.
Garlic
Garlic is a kind of allium vegetable, a family of vegetables that are very high in sulfur compounds. This family also includes onions, scallions, shallots, leeks, and chives, as well as hundreds of wild species, and it’s important to ingest alliums—not only have they been proven to help prevent cardiovascular disease, but they also improve your metabolism, reduce swelling associated with obesity, and even reduce your risk of cancer. Not to mention they make every meal smell and taste intoxicating!
For all these spices and many, many more, come into Cedars, where our chefs are closely familiar with all the applications of our spices and know not only how to combine them for the best possible flavor, but also how create a meal that will leave you feeling healthy, settled, and strong.
