March 6, 2025 • 27 mins
Eva and Maite start the episode talking about the complexity of moles and how this ubiquitous Mexican dish melds together flavors, textures, cooking techniques, and spices (!) from around the world. They then delve into the rich and spicy history of spices, which were once so desired by wealthy Europeans they kicked off the Age of Exploration.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
My name is Evel Longoria and I am MAE Gomez
Rajon And welcome to.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Hungry for History, a podcast that explores our past and
present through food.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
On every episode, we'll talk about the history of some
of our favorite dishes, ingredients, and beverages from our culture.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
So make yourself at home, even broche This is crazy.
I feel like maybe you and I talk about this
all the time, but maybe we just haven't recorded it.
I think so. But yeah, today we're talking spices and
we're kicking things off with Molley.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Wouldn't you say Molley for us is the mother of
all sauces. I mean, is it a sauce?
Speaker 3 (00:43):
It is a sauce. It is a sauce, And I
would say that in Mexico.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
Yes, Molley is the most complex sauce and the most
famous version of Mollet. The Moro has lots of different spaces.
So we did an entire episode on salt, and this
time we're doing an entire episode on spices.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Spices. Now, you know you and I have talked about this.
I am not a big fan of Molley. I didn't
grow up with it. Did you grow up with Molley? Yes?
Speaker 3 (01:14):
I did. I did not I did always.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
I mean, my mom wouldn't make it from scratch, but
we would go to the grocery store and Noveloredo and
there were the mounds of different types of moles, so
she would just buy it by the pound.
Speaker 3 (01:27):
So it's one of my favorite foods. Like I mean, I.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
Could probably even say final meal would be more. Oh yes,
my lad, fried plantains and white rice.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
But mullet what on chicken or chi?
Speaker 1 (01:45):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (01:46):
Yeah on chicken, yes, yeah?
Speaker 2 (01:47):
And is there a certain Molley like because you know
there's many mullets, there's many moles.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
I like the mule Neegro or the Coloraito mole. Those
are my favorite moles. But I always go to how
Can Market in La and I buy it. And when
my mom comes to visit every single time, she's like,
we have she has to go buy Molley always. So
those are the show that I really like, and I
always have the Moley paste if.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
You go buy Molley. Are all Mulley's created equal?
Speaker 3 (02:17):
No?
Speaker 2 (02:18):
No, This is probably why I don't like it, because
I probably had bad Molley growing up and I was like, ew,
that's horrible.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
Yeah, that makes it probably, But you spent so much
time in Wohaka. You know, when you were doing searching
for Mexico, did you taste amazing Molissa?
Speaker 2 (02:34):
But let me, I want to be clear that mullet
comes from Puebla, right, well yeah, well the the well,
I mean, I mean they say Molley comes from Puebla,
but that Wahawkan's perfected it. That was. That's the debate.
That is, and I don't want to get in the middle.
I don't want to get in the middle of the debate.
(02:54):
But but I just don't want people listening to the
podcast going, hey, hey, hey, hey, Molley is not from Wahaka.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
Well, the most well known molee is, for sure, and
that was invented in colonial kitchens of Bueblah for sure.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
Yeah, okay, okay, yeah, but I know I don't think
Here's the thing reason why I don't think we had it.
My mom's not that great of a cook. I'm the
cook in the family. And Mona's hard to make. If
you make it, oh, if you make it, it's so laborious,
Oh god, so many different ingredients. I mean, what is
(03:27):
a minimum twenty six or something like that, like the
minimum minim amount of ingredients minimum twenty.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
Six, thirty like it's just so it's so intensive and
add so many different steps.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
Yeah. No, and they're shitting there that you don't think
goes together, you know what I mean. It's like nuts, chocolate, spices, cayenne,
you know, a bay leaf, and you're this should not
go together, but it does.
Speaker 3 (03:52):
It does.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
It's this harmonious blend of ingredients from all over the world.
Speaker 3 (03:58):
It's just I think it's it's magical. It's magical.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
Well, I want to dive in because where where did
it originate? It doesn't feel Mexican. I know it's Mexican now,
but it doesn't feel like it originated from indigenous Mexico.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
Well, the word itself, molet comes from the nawel muli,
which means sauce, so in that sense, yes, and so
in the pre colonial era there would make sauce it
with chilis and seeds and tomatoes, you know, they made
them into with them at that then formed it into
a paste and they would add broth to it, just
(04:36):
like we do with the molet pieste today, and add
it to you know, turkey or sometimes the sauce they
would put it on tortillas. But it was much simple.
It was much simpler than what we think of mollet today.
And so throughout the centuries, you know, post conquest, all
of these different ingredients were introduced into Mexico, like spices,
(05:00):
is and different types of nuts, and that evolved into
the sauce that we're familiar with today. And this evolved
in pre colonial you know, convents, but not almo Let's
have chocolate, right not Almollyts have a million different ingredients
and so it's and spices.
Speaker 3 (05:19):
So it's just the word morley comes from sauce.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
And then so when did it become so complicated?
Speaker 1 (05:26):
So in the seventeenth century, we see we talked about
so Inez Elecros in one of our I think on
our cookbook episodes, and so she wrote the first recipes
in Mexico, and so in the seventeenth century, and she
has a recipe for mole which is a mancha manteles,
which is a type of molet. It's poat chicken and
a sauce made with rehydrated chili, sesame seeds, tomato, onion
(05:49):
rais and sweet potatoes, cinnamon, cloves, salt, pepper, and it's
served with sliced plantains and pineapples and apples. So, like
you say, things that you wouldn't think would go together,
but they do. And so this is so interesting because
these sauces, they represent this cultural exchange that was happening
during this time, which is which I think is just
(06:11):
really fascinating. It's kind of like when we did our
Food in a Cup episode that when you buy a
fruit from the fruit that all of the fruit is
from a different part.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
Of the world.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
That's kind of like you know Molle the chef and
food historian Madicate, but yes, she refers to the America
as a lab of innercontinental fusion, right, So it's like
all of these ingredients are mixing together.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
When I was shooting in New Mexico and Albuquerque, the
first time I liked Mollet was in Santa Fe. There's
a Mexican restaurant there called Sasson, and the chef is
from Mexico. I think he's Chilango. I think he's from
Mexico City. But he has twelve different moles that's the appetizer,
(06:54):
and they come in tiny little bowls like this, and
it's like six and six and tiny little tortillas like
the size of a quarter, I mean literally or a
silver dollar. I don't know if people know what that is,
but it's like, you know, a tiny little torfilla, a
little staff of tiny corn torpillas and twelve little mullas
and the point is to try them. And there's sweet ones,
(07:17):
there's green ones, there's dark ones, there's spicy ones there.
And that's what really made me go, oh, there's different ones,
like I didn't know. I didn't know there was sweet
and then there was savory. So I personally liked the
green favory one. But you have to go, like, it's
worth going to Santa Fe to this restaurant for the
(07:41):
twelve different mullets that this guy makes. And in the restaurant,
the mural on the wall is all the ingredients. It's
just all the ingredients of mullet and it's a big
mural and it's beautiful. And he's like, that's molley. Like
this restaurant is specializes in molley.
Speaker 1 (07:56):
Yes, I want to go, let's go, Let's go.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
And that made me go, that's what made me go, oh, Okay, okay,
maybe maybe I might like this. I maybe just haven't
had the right molet. Then I went to Wahaka with
searching for Mexico and we went to the place of
the specialty of Wahaka and he did it with turkey,
it with wild.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
Our original protein. Yeah, that's so interesting. And like you
say that that restaurant that has so many different times,
I think that the common misconception is that almoleys.
Speaker 3 (08:31):
Have chocolate, or there's like the one morlet.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
But there's so many, right, And there's so many different
textures and so many different flavors. And there's the one
the moleli. Oh yeah, it is not even a sauce.
It's like a soup, like a hearty soup. And you
told me this because I always thought, oh, Wahaka's famous
for seven morles, but it's there's not just seven molas.
It's like a marketing thing, right, There's a million different
(08:56):
more lis.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
A million different molives, million different mollets, different different different
flavor profiles. So that's why I have always forgave myself
for saying I don't really like mollet, because I feel
like I had one, you know what I mean, I
had one one type of mulley, and I'm like that
I don't like it. Yeah, And then I went to
Wahaka and I went to Susson, and I was like,
(09:18):
oh my gosh, this I would I would drink I
get I get it.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
You probably had the one that you buy and get
that the grocery show, the Dona Maria or whatever.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
That's like, yes, that's what I'm saying. I don't think
I agree with you. They're not all created equal. Yeah,
because I want to say, here's the thing. Also, because
malle has so many ingredients. There are some ingredients I
don't like. I don't like anie, I don't like clovy,
clovy mullet, and a lot of money's clovy. Talk about
the ingredients because there's so many.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
There's so many ingredients, and some molts have up to
thirty ingredients right from all the world.
Speaker 3 (09:50):
Cinnamon is from Sri Lanka and it's from.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
Asia, clothes from Indonesia, Peanuts from the andes, cilantro from
the Eastern Mediterranean, bananas from India, s seeds from Africa.
Speaker 3 (10:01):
And that's only just a few of the ingredients.
Speaker 1 (10:03):
So all of these ingredients from the different continents, they
meet native tomatoes and chilis and pumpkin seeds and the
toasted you know, dorothiya, and so all of this is
blended together and cooked and lard that arrived from European pigs, right,
so so, but I think that the really good mole
(10:24):
is all of these flavors are balanced. It's kind of
like an Indian food, that the food flavors are balance
because I don't love cuman, but I oh, I love
you do, right, I don't love love. Yeah, molet has cuman,
but you don't taste it. Right, So if it's yeah,
I think a really good cook a really good molet,
(10:46):
not one flavor stands out and everything just compliments each
other really beautifully.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
When we come back. How long do spices last in
our pantry? I've always wanted to know that because I
feel like spices spire that's after the break.
Speaker 3 (11:07):
So, Eva, what are your favorite spices to cook one?
Speaker 2 (11:10):
Oh my gosh, this is grab. I love this question.
I feel like you are genuinely interested.
Speaker 3 (11:18):
I am totally I want to know, you know what.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
During COVID, I did a video organizing my spice rack,
and I thought it was the most exciting. Big Remember
I think every bore like, yes, I do.
Speaker 3 (11:32):
I often organize my spice rack too.
Speaker 4 (11:34):
I love to see what I have SMA, and you know,
I organize like the sweet like you know, baking, like
you know, my vanilla and my cinnamon and my cardimen
on one side and then the other on the other side,
because oftentimes I confuse cumen and cinnamon, like I'll I'll
reach for the cinnamon and I'm like, oh and I
almost throw in cumin in my apple pot, you know,
(11:58):
like oh my god, yeah, horrible.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
My go tos are I have to have garlic powder,
onion powder, gominal and kosh your salt. Okay, like my
my go to, my go to onion powder, garlic powder
and and salts and gomino that goes in almost everything
I cook.
Speaker 3 (12:17):
Really, and I use powder.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
I don't use s okay. Okay. Then if that doesn't,
that's like white is not considered a color because that's
my favorite color too, So right, yeah, so great. So
then it's garlic powder, onion powder, and gomino cuman.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
But garlic powder and onion powder aren't spices either, What
do you mean? Yeah, because they don't. A spice comes
from the roots or the seeds, stems, barks of a plant.
Speaker 3 (12:48):
So human really is the spice that you cook?
Speaker 2 (12:52):
Okay?
Speaker 3 (12:53):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (12:54):
Yeah, then it would be human? What about what about
oh so then thyme and rosemary, none of that.
Speaker 3 (13:01):
Those are all herbs.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
Oh oh interesting, Yeah, well what other spices are there?
Speaker 1 (13:09):
So things like cinnamon, clothes, you know, cuman and it's
carda mom what else, capper not meg vanilla that's native
to van to Mexico.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
So yeah, so the way because the vanilla bean is
the shruit, well, the seeds, the seeds.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
Exactly, the seeds, and herbs are the leaves of the plant.
So dried herbs like the dried thyme, that is an herb.
But when we go to the supermarket, all of the
herbs and the spices, they're all the dried herbs and spices.
It's all in the same place. The salt is all
(13:54):
everything's in the same section of the of the grocery
store because everything is used to add flavored to a.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
Dish, right right. And so here's the thing that I've
always known that spices don't get better with age, Like
I you really have to throw out old spices. The
faster you use them, the better, the better little taste.
I always like, if I'm like for Thanksgiving, I buy
everything new, Like I'm like a new Union powdered new garlic.
But yeah, because I just want it to have like
(14:22):
the most potency. And you I can feel when a
spice is gone back, especially like bay leaves, they just
get dried. They don't they don't have the same flavor
that they would if they were fresher. The vanilla bean
I always have in my in my pantry that the
actual vanilla beans, and they're very expensive, but they go
(14:42):
bad they like you like you want a fresh vanilla bean.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
They last about three to four years from harvest time.
And some spices has a manufacturing date printed on it,
not they don't all. But that's when you can tell
when you know when it was manufactured, because sometimes this
stuff in the grocery store has been on the shelf
or has been not necessarily on the shelf but harvested
for years and years and years and gone from you know,
(15:09):
hand to hand.
Speaker 2 (15:10):
Yes, so check check that date. But also I will say,
which I've noticed is whole spices last longer than ground spice.
And so I usually buy a whole human seeds, whole
black peppercorns, whole cinnamon, right like, and then I I
grind it, do you really, I'll grind it. Yeah, So
I have like you know, like a coffee grinder. Yeah,
(15:32):
I'll use a coffee grinder that's just for spices, my
spice grinder or in the Malta, yeah, you.
Speaker 3 (15:40):
Do that, I usually have, I have my I have
both for certain things. I'll use the the the certain things. Certain.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
Where did the word spice come from?
Speaker 1 (15:50):
So spice comes from the Latin species or special wares,
and it refers to an item of special value as
opposed to something that's just ordinary, like ordinary art of trade.
So now we don't think that there are really anything
that special, like pepper or cinnamon their staples in our pantries. Right,
I probably use cinnamon more than I use anything else.
(16:11):
But they really love cinnamon, cinnamon and pepper.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
Didn't Christopher Columbus have a big hand and how spices
came over.
Speaker 3 (16:19):
During the Middle Ages.
Speaker 1 (16:20):
Europeans they really wanted spices, and they were getting the
spices from Asia, and it was one of the motivating
factors of the European.
Speaker 3 (16:29):
Age of Exploration.
Speaker 1 (16:30):
They wanted a more direct access to the East to
get spices, and so they had been exported along the
Silk Roads, and so there were these different land and
sea routes. But the Europeans just wanted these direct routes
because they were so expensive by the time they got
to Europe, because they went from so many different hands.
(16:51):
So Europeans wanted to cut these middlemen and then.
Speaker 3 (16:54):
Just go straight to the source.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
And so Christopher Columbus were sent to find a direct
route from Europe to Asia. And so in this search
for the direct route, Christopher Columbus came across a land
mass that he thought was India and when it wasn't.
This is why the natives in the Americas are called Indias,
(17:20):
because he called them Indians. But this is how he landed,
not discovered, landed in Americas in search of spices.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
Now, also, like I remember, I mean for me, you know,
growing up Catholic, I associate going to church so much
with the smell of that incense. Oh yeah, wasn't that
technically a spice? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (17:48):
Yeah, And because a lot of spices are used for that,
you know, for churches.
Speaker 2 (17:55):
In religious ceremonies. Yeah. You and I have talked about
also the cost of spice. Like you know, when I
was doing Mexico searching for Mexico, they were saying vanilla
is the second most expensive spice after saffron, because it's
so labor intend Saffron so labor intensive because it's they're
actual little.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
Petals or little the little stamens of the crocus one.
Speaker 2 (18:19):
Yeah, but what was the cost back then in Europe
to you know, if they were in so demand, these
spices were like so in demand and being exported along
all of these routes, Like, was were they expensive? Was
it considered like, you know, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (18:36):
A luxury, absolute luxury. They're so expensive. So there's a
historian m and Pearson. He writes about the cost requard
to get spices to Europe via the traditional Middle Eastern routes, says,
the price of a kilo of pepper as it changed
hands was enormous. So it costs one or two grams
(18:56):
of silver at the production point, and then once it
reached Alexandria in Egypt, it was ten to fourteen, fourteen
to eighteen in Venice, and then in the consumer countries
of Europe twenty to thirty. So it went from costing
like one gram of silver to thirty grams of silver.
So this is why, because it was so luxurious, everybody
(19:18):
wanted their hands on it, which I find so interesting
because now we open up our pantries and.
Speaker 2 (19:22):
We all have it her everywhere.
Speaker 3 (19:25):
They're not expensive.
Speaker 2 (19:26):
Well, vanilla still it real Mexican vanilla is the most expensive.
If you're if you're in a store and you see
a vanilla for ninety nine cents and one another bottle
right next to it for twenty dollars, that's because the
ninety nine cent one is not vanilla. It's the Nain
which is a synthetic vanilla, and the twenty dollars bottle
(19:48):
is real vanilla. So you look, look, look at the
labels exactly exactly.
Speaker 1 (19:54):
And also saffron is still really expensive, and cardamom is
also pretty expensive because those are really.
Speaker 2 (19:59):
Yeah, I love card I think I like cardam and
more than cinnamon.
Speaker 1 (20:02):
Oh really, I love them both, yea love. I love
the smell of cardim It's amazing.
Speaker 2 (20:07):
So so how were spices? You know, I don't associate
Europe with spices, So when you talk about like Europe
loved and wanted all these spices, I'm like, what did
they use it for? Because for me it's like in
Europe it's such clean cooking. And I find like India, China, Mexico,
they really we really use a lot of spices, Like,
(20:30):
how were spices used in Europe?
Speaker 1 (20:31):
Yeah, that's so interesting that you say that, because you're right,
spices at one point, like during the Middle Ages, they
were they wanted their hands on it, right on ginger
and clothes and cinnamon, all of this, and even the
lower classes when they could afford it, they would get pepper,
so they would use them so much in cooking. They
(20:53):
believe they had medicinal value, like black pepper was considered
a treatment for coffs and asthma and could wounds, and
cinnamon helped cure fevers. It was burned like incense and
so in churches and brothels everywhere to improve the odors
of the day. But it changed, like right now, we
(21:13):
don't really associate Europe with a lot of spices because
when they became more readily available, they weren't seen as
a source of wealth and status.
Speaker 3 (21:23):
So then they start cooking.
Speaker 1 (21:24):
With herbs, with butter, and it was more about the
mouth feel and this, and it just became something different.
Speaker 3 (21:30):
It just kind of lost their their I don't know,
they're they're.
Speaker 1 (21:36):
Oomph But even gemstones and semi precious stones were often
categorized as spices. Stones like topas were thought to ease hemorrhoids.
Lapislazo was good for malaria. And I hope people don't
start doing this today because there's so much crazy stuff
going on. Empowdered pearls mixed with was taking to prevent
(22:01):
old age.
Speaker 3 (22:03):
Powdered pearls mixed with spices.
Speaker 2 (22:05):
We've got lots more after the break, stay with us.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
So Eva, let's talk about some of the most popular spices.
Speaker 3 (22:17):
Can you guess some of them?
Speaker 2 (22:20):
I mean, cinnamon has to be. Cinnamon has to be.
Why haven't even seen this list? Cinnamon and pet I mean, oh,
is pepper a spice?
Speaker 3 (22:28):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (22:29):
Okay, pepper, Yeah, cinnamon and pepper are up there.
Speaker 3 (22:32):
Yeah, cinnamon, pepper, clave. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
All of the ones that we're mentioning, except for clothes.
We didn't really talk about clothes. But I love this
story about cinnamon. Merchants would tell stories that to harvest cinnamon,
they would have to set out large chunks of raw
meat near the nests of a cinemologous bird a mythical bird,
and the birds would swoop down and carry off the
(22:56):
limbs of these beasts to their nests, and the nests
would break and fall down and then Arabians would approach
and collect what they wanted. So this is nonsense. Cinnamon
comes from the bark of a tree.
Speaker 2 (23:11):
I was gonna say, well, miss, now I'm confused. What
is cinnamon? Isn't it? I was like, is it a stem?
Is it? Is it a root? It's the bark of
a tree.
Speaker 3 (23:21):
Cinnamon is the bark of a tree.
Speaker 1 (23:23):
But there the merchants would create these crazy stories just
to hike up the price of the cinnamon. And during
the Middle Ages it was one of the favored spices.
It was regarded as an aphrodisiac.
Speaker 2 (23:39):
So it's endemic to Sri Lanka, India. Yeah, and marra mar.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
And then there are some really interesting videos and you'll
see people taking a tool and like imagine like a
thick flad heead screwdriver, and they're just just you know
how it comes in little.
Speaker 2 (23:55):
Like shaving it off, shaving it off. Yeah, exactly where
does cumin come from? Greeks?
Speaker 1 (24:01):
Cuman is also native to the eastern Mediterranean and also
South Asia and oldest reference to Cuman dates back about
five thousand years. They're both as a mummification ingredient for
Egyptian pharaohs.
Speaker 3 (24:17):
Yeah, lots of stories.
Speaker 2 (24:19):
I know, there's so many cool stories. I remember. I
know the story about black pepper being called black gold
and it was like the King of spices because it
was so widely consumed. Which is so interesting, because I
find black pepper to be boring. Really, I find it
very I don't use a lot of it. I find
it very one note. I'd rather if I want spice
like heat in something, I would rather use cayenne, chipotlet,
(24:44):
ancho Chile. I mean, black pepper is not my go to,
which is interesting.
Speaker 3 (24:50):
Yeah, I do use a lot of black pepper for
me when I do.
Speaker 1 (24:53):
If I do cayenne or something like that, it brings
a different flavor profile.
Speaker 2 (24:58):
So yeah, I like the mixed pepper corns, the red,
the white, the black. Like I like like the mix.
I'm not a fan of like black pepper. I feel
like it's so one note.
Speaker 3 (25:12):
So you don't use like salt pepper, you just use
salt and.
Speaker 2 (25:15):
Anything else, salt, garlic, cumi, other stuff. Yeah, I rarely
use pepper, rarely use pepper. I covered this a lot
in searching for Mexico, but there's so many spices that
are that are native to the America is obviously vanilla.
We've talked about vanilla chile, which is technically a fruit,
but we now use it as as spice. We have
(25:39):
a vanilla and a chili episode if you guys want
to want to try those out. What I've never used achiote?
What do you use that one?
Speaker 3 (25:49):
I don't. I don't use it.
Speaker 2 (25:51):
I mean, that's a fruit, isn't it.
Speaker 3 (25:53):
It's a spice. It's a it's a spice.
Speaker 2 (25:55):
That's Oh, that's right, that's the one from your terrier.
That's the almost Yeah, the paste.
Speaker 3 (26:09):
So I do when I make that, I do use it.
Speaker 1 (26:12):
I buy the riccatto, but I don't typically have the you.
Speaker 2 (26:17):
Know whole Well you should because it's an aphrodisiac.
Speaker 3 (26:21):
Oh, that's true. Right now.
Speaker 2 (26:24):
It's associated with the fertility gods. It is, That's what
it was. And then what's all spice? All spice? All
spice is native to the America.
Speaker 1 (26:35):
It is, it is, and it's like a giant it
looks like a giant pepper corn. And it's called allspice
because it smells like all of the spices. It smells
like a combination of pepper and nutmeg and cinnamon and
all of it, but it was used in seasoning and
also in perfumery. And it grows. Yeah, it grows along
the Gulf coast from Veracruz to Yucatan.
Speaker 3 (26:58):
I love all spice. Well.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
I hope this episode inspires people to clean out your spices,
organize yours zes. I hope this episode inspires people to
actually open your palate to new spices. Yeah, you know, like,
let's try some try cardiman instead of cinnamon, try the
red pepper flake as opposed to black party, Like, try
(27:21):
try tomn spices because the history of them is really fascinating. Well,
thanks for listening, you guys. I hope this was a
fascinating for you as it was for me in my day.
Speaker 3 (27:34):
Thank you for listening everyone.
Speaker 2 (27:36):
Thanks, goodbye bye, Hungary for History is a hyphen media
production in partnership with Iheart's my podcast network.
Speaker 1 (27:45):
For more of your favorite shows, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
My name is Evel Longoria and I am MAE Gomez
Rajon And welcome to.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Hungry for History, a podcast that explores our past and
present through food.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
On every episode, we'll talk about the history of some
of our favorite dishes, ingredients, and beverages from our culture.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
So make yourself at home, even broche This is crazy.
I feel like maybe you and I talk about this
all the time, but maybe we just haven't recorded it.
I think so. But yeah, today we're talking spices and
we're kicking things off with Molley.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Wouldn't you say Molley for us is the mother of
all sauces. I mean, is it a sauce?
Speaker 3 (00:43):
It is a sauce. It is a sauce, And I
would say that in Mexico.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
Yes, Molley is the most complex sauce and the most
famous version of Mollet. The Moro has lots of different spaces.
So we did an entire episode on salt, and this
time we're doing an entire episode on spices.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Spices. Now, you know you and I have talked about this.
I am not a big fan of Molley. I didn't
grow up with it. Did you grow up with Molley? Yes?
Speaker 3 (01:14):
I did. I did not I did always.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
I mean, my mom wouldn't make it from scratch, but
we would go to the grocery store and Noveloredo and
there were the mounds of different types of moles, so
she would just buy it by the pound.
Speaker 3 (01:27):
So it's one of my favorite foods. Like I mean, I.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
Could probably even say final meal would be more. Oh yes,
my lad, fried plantains and white rice.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
But mullet what on chicken or chi?
Speaker 1 (01:45):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (01:46):
Yeah on chicken, yes, yeah?
Speaker 2 (01:47):
And is there a certain Molley like because you know
there's many mullets, there's many moles.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
I like the mule Neegro or the Coloraito mole. Those
are my favorite moles. But I always go to how
Can Market in La and I buy it. And when
my mom comes to visit every single time, she's like,
we have she has to go buy Molley always. So
those are the show that I really like, and I
always have the Moley paste if.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
You go buy Molley. Are all Mulley's created equal?
Speaker 3 (02:17):
No?
Speaker 2 (02:18):
No, This is probably why I don't like it, because
I probably had bad Molley growing up and I was like, ew,
that's horrible.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
Yeah, that makes it probably, But you spent so much
time in Wohaka. You know, when you were doing searching
for Mexico, did you taste amazing Molissa?
Speaker 2 (02:34):
But let me, I want to be clear that mullet
comes from Puebla, right, well yeah, well the the well,
I mean, I mean they say Molley comes from Puebla,
but that Wahawkan's perfected it. That was. That's the debate.
That is, and I don't want to get in the middle.
I don't want to get in the middle of the debate.
(02:54):
But but I just don't want people listening to the
podcast going, hey, hey, hey, hey, Molley is not from Wahaka.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
Well, the most well known molee is, for sure, and
that was invented in colonial kitchens of Bueblah for sure.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
Yeah, okay, okay, yeah, but I know I don't think
Here's the thing reason why I don't think we had it.
My mom's not that great of a cook. I'm the
cook in the family. And Mona's hard to make. If
you make it, oh, if you make it, it's so laborious,
Oh god, so many different ingredients. I mean, what is
(03:27):
a minimum twenty six or something like that, like the
minimum minim amount of ingredients minimum twenty.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
Six, thirty like it's just so it's so intensive and
add so many different steps.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
Yeah. No, and they're shitting there that you don't think
goes together, you know what I mean. It's like nuts, chocolate, spices, cayenne,
you know, a bay leaf, and you're this should not
go together, but it does.
Speaker 3 (03:52):
It does.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
It's this harmonious blend of ingredients from all over the world.
Speaker 3 (03:58):
It's just I think it's it's magical. It's magical.
Speaker 2 (04:01):
Well, I want to dive in because where where did
it originate? It doesn't feel Mexican. I know it's Mexican now,
but it doesn't feel like it originated from indigenous Mexico.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
Well, the word itself, molet comes from the nawel muli,
which means sauce, so in that sense, yes, and so
in the pre colonial era there would make sauce it
with chilis and seeds and tomatoes, you know, they made
them into with them at that then formed it into
a paste and they would add broth to it, just
(04:36):
like we do with the molet pieste today, and add
it to you know, turkey or sometimes the sauce they
would put it on tortillas. But it was much simple.
It was much simpler than what we think of mollet today.
And so throughout the centuries, you know, post conquest, all
of these different ingredients were introduced into Mexico, like spices,
(05:00):
is and different types of nuts, and that evolved into
the sauce that we're familiar with today. And this evolved
in pre colonial you know, convents, but not almo Let's
have chocolate, right not Almollyts have a million different ingredients
and so it's and spices.
Speaker 3 (05:19):
So it's just the word morley comes from sauce.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
And then so when did it become so complicated?
Speaker 1 (05:26):
So in the seventeenth century, we see we talked about
so Inez Elecros in one of our I think on
our cookbook episodes, and so she wrote the first recipes
in Mexico, and so in the seventeenth century, and she
has a recipe for mole which is a mancha manteles,
which is a type of molet. It's poat chicken and
a sauce made with rehydrated chili, sesame seeds, tomato, onion
(05:49):
rais and sweet potatoes, cinnamon, cloves, salt, pepper, and it's
served with sliced plantains and pineapples and apples. So, like
you say, things that you wouldn't think would go together,
but they do. And so this is so interesting because
these sauces, they represent this cultural exchange that was happening
during this time, which is which I think is just
(06:11):
really fascinating. It's kind of like when we did our
Food in a Cup episode that when you buy a
fruit from the fruit that all of the fruit is
from a different part.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
Of the world.
Speaker 1 (06:20):
That's kind of like you know Molle the chef and
food historian Madicate, but yes, she refers to the America
as a lab of innercontinental fusion, right, So it's like
all of these ingredients are mixing together.
Speaker 2 (06:32):
When I was shooting in New Mexico and Albuquerque, the
first time I liked Mollet was in Santa Fe. There's
a Mexican restaurant there called Sasson, and the chef is
from Mexico. I think he's Chilango. I think he's from
Mexico City. But he has twelve different moles that's the appetizer,
(06:54):
and they come in tiny little bowls like this, and
it's like six and six and tiny little tortillas like
the size of a quarter, I mean literally or a
silver dollar. I don't know if people know what that is,
but it's like, you know, a tiny little torfilla, a
little staff of tiny corn torpillas and twelve little mullas
and the point is to try them. And there's sweet ones,
(07:17):
there's green ones, there's dark ones, there's spicy ones there.
And that's what really made me go, oh, there's different ones,
like I didn't know. I didn't know there was sweet
and then there was savory. So I personally liked the
green favory one. But you have to go, like, it's
worth going to Santa Fe to this restaurant for the
(07:41):
twelve different mullets that this guy makes. And in the restaurant,
the mural on the wall is all the ingredients. It's
just all the ingredients of mullet and it's a big
mural and it's beautiful. And he's like, that's molley. Like
this restaurant is specializes in molley.
Speaker 1 (07:56):
Yes, I want to go, let's go, Let's go.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
And that made me go, that's what made me go, oh, Okay, okay,
maybe maybe I might like this. I maybe just haven't
had the right molet. Then I went to Wahaka with
searching for Mexico and we went to the place of
the specialty of Wahaka and he did it with turkey,
it with wild.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
Our original protein. Yeah, that's so interesting. And like you
say that that restaurant that has so many different times,
I think that the common misconception is that almoleys.
Speaker 3 (08:31):
Have chocolate, or there's like the one morlet.
Speaker 1 (08:34):
But there's so many, right, And there's so many different
textures and so many different flavors. And there's the one
the moleli. Oh yeah, it is not even a sauce.
It's like a soup, like a hearty soup. And you
told me this because I always thought, oh, Wahaka's famous
for seven morles, but it's there's not just seven molas.
It's like a marketing thing, right, There's a million different
(08:56):
more lis.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
A million different molives, million different mollets, different different different
flavor profiles. So that's why I have always forgave myself
for saying I don't really like mollet, because I feel
like I had one, you know what I mean, I
had one one type of mulley, and I'm like that
I don't like it. Yeah, And then I went to
Wahaka and I went to Susson, and I was like,
(09:18):
oh my gosh, this I would I would drink I
get I get it.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
You probably had the one that you buy and get
that the grocery show, the Dona Maria or whatever.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
That's like, yes, that's what I'm saying. I don't think
I agree with you. They're not all created equal. Yeah,
because I want to say, here's the thing. Also, because
malle has so many ingredients. There are some ingredients I
don't like. I don't like anie, I don't like clovy,
clovy mullet, and a lot of money's clovy. Talk about
the ingredients because there's so many.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
There's so many ingredients, and some molts have up to
thirty ingredients right from all the world.
Speaker 3 (09:50):
Cinnamon is from Sri Lanka and it's from.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
Asia, clothes from Indonesia, Peanuts from the andes, cilantro from
the Eastern Mediterranean, bananas from India, s seeds from Africa.
Speaker 3 (10:01):
And that's only just a few of the ingredients.
Speaker 1 (10:03):
So all of these ingredients from the different continents, they
meet native tomatoes and chilis and pumpkin seeds and the
toasted you know, dorothiya, and so all of this is
blended together and cooked and lard that arrived from European pigs, right,
so so, but I think that the really good mole
(10:24):
is all of these flavors are balanced. It's kind of
like an Indian food, that the food flavors are balance
because I don't love cuman, but I oh, I love
you do, right, I don't love love. Yeah, molet has cuman,
but you don't taste it. Right, So if it's yeah,
I think a really good cook a really good molet,
(10:46):
not one flavor stands out and everything just compliments each
other really beautifully.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
When we come back. How long do spices last in
our pantry? I've always wanted to know that because I
feel like spices spire that's after the break.
Speaker 3 (11:07):
So, Eva, what are your favorite spices to cook one?
Speaker 2 (11:10):
Oh my gosh, this is grab. I love this question.
I feel like you are genuinely interested.
Speaker 3 (11:18):
I am totally I want to know, you know what.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
During COVID, I did a video organizing my spice rack,
and I thought it was the most exciting. Big Remember
I think every bore like, yes, I do.
Speaker 3 (11:32):
I often organize my spice rack too.
Speaker 4 (11:34):
I love to see what I have SMA, and you know,
I organize like the sweet like you know, baking, like
you know, my vanilla and my cinnamon and my cardimen
on one side and then the other on the other side,
because oftentimes I confuse cumen and cinnamon, like I'll I'll
reach for the cinnamon and I'm like, oh and I
almost throw in cumin in my apple pot, you know,
(11:58):
like oh my god, yeah, horrible.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
My go tos are I have to have garlic powder,
onion powder, gominal and kosh your salt. Okay, like my
my go to, my go to onion powder, garlic powder
and and salts and gomino that goes in almost everything
I cook.
Speaker 3 (12:17):
Really, and I use powder.
Speaker 2 (12:18):
I don't use s okay. Okay. Then if that doesn't,
that's like white is not considered a color because that's
my favorite color too, So right, yeah, so great. So
then it's garlic powder, onion powder, and gomino cuman.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
But garlic powder and onion powder aren't spices either, What
do you mean? Yeah, because they don't. A spice comes
from the roots or the seeds, stems, barks of a plant.
Speaker 3 (12:48):
So human really is the spice that you cook?
Speaker 2 (12:52):
Okay?
Speaker 3 (12:53):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (12:54):
Yeah, then it would be human? What about what about
oh so then thyme and rosemary, none of that.
Speaker 3 (13:01):
Those are all herbs.
Speaker 2 (13:03):
Oh oh interesting, Yeah, well what other spices are there?
Speaker 1 (13:09):
So things like cinnamon, clothes, you know, cuman and it's
carda mom what else, capper not meg vanilla that's native
to van to Mexico.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
So yeah, so the way because the vanilla bean is
the shruit, well, the seeds, the seeds.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
Exactly, the seeds, and herbs are the leaves of the plant.
So dried herbs like the dried thyme, that is an herb.
But when we go to the supermarket, all of the
herbs and the spices, they're all the dried herbs and spices.
It's all in the same place. The salt is all
(13:54):
everything's in the same section of the of the grocery
store because everything is used to add flavored to a.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
Dish, right right. And so here's the thing that I've
always known that spices don't get better with age, Like
I you really have to throw out old spices. The
faster you use them, the better, the better little taste.
I always like, if I'm like for Thanksgiving, I buy
everything new, Like I'm like a new Union powdered new garlic.
But yeah, because I just want it to have like
(14:22):
the most potency. And you I can feel when a
spice is gone back, especially like bay leaves, they just
get dried. They don't they don't have the same flavor
that they would if they were fresher. The vanilla bean
I always have in my in my pantry that the
actual vanilla beans, and they're very expensive, but they go
(14:42):
bad they like you like you want a fresh vanilla bean.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
They last about three to four years from harvest time.
And some spices has a manufacturing date printed on it,
not they don't all. But that's when you can tell
when you know when it was manufactured, because sometimes this
stuff in the grocery store has been on the shelf
or has been not necessarily on the shelf but harvested
for years and years and years and gone from you know,
(15:09):
hand to hand.
Speaker 2 (15:10):
Yes, so check check that date. But also I will say,
which I've noticed is whole spices last longer than ground spice.
And so I usually buy a whole human seeds, whole
black peppercorns, whole cinnamon, right like, and then I I
grind it, do you really, I'll grind it. Yeah, So
I have like you know, like a coffee grinder. Yeah,
(15:32):
I'll use a coffee grinder that's just for spices, my
spice grinder or in the Malta, yeah, you.
Speaker 3 (15:40):
Do that, I usually have, I have my I have
both for certain things. I'll use the the the certain things. Certain.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
Where did the word spice come from?
Speaker 1 (15:50):
So spice comes from the Latin species or special wares,
and it refers to an item of special value as
opposed to something that's just ordinary, like ordinary art of trade.
So now we don't think that there are really anything
that special, like pepper or cinnamon their staples in our pantries. Right,
I probably use cinnamon more than I use anything else.
(16:11):
But they really love cinnamon, cinnamon and pepper.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
Didn't Christopher Columbus have a big hand and how spices
came over.
Speaker 3 (16:19):
During the Middle Ages.
Speaker 1 (16:20):
Europeans they really wanted spices, and they were getting the
spices from Asia, and it was one of the motivating
factors of the European.
Speaker 3 (16:29):
Age of Exploration.
Speaker 1 (16:30):
They wanted a more direct access to the East to
get spices, and so they had been exported along the
Silk Roads, and so there were these different land and
sea routes. But the Europeans just wanted these direct routes
because they were so expensive by the time they got
to Europe, because they went from so many different hands.
(16:51):
So Europeans wanted to cut these middlemen and then.
Speaker 3 (16:54):
Just go straight to the source.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
And so Christopher Columbus were sent to find a direct
route from Europe to Asia. And so in this search
for the direct route, Christopher Columbus came across a land
mass that he thought was India and when it wasn't.
This is why the natives in the Americas are called Indias,
(17:20):
because he called them Indians. But this is how he landed,
not discovered, landed in Americas in search of spices.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
Now, also, like I remember, I mean for me, you know,
growing up Catholic, I associate going to church so much
with the smell of that incense. Oh yeah, wasn't that
technically a spice? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (17:48):
Yeah, And because a lot of spices are used for that,
you know, for churches.
Speaker 2 (17:55):
In religious ceremonies. Yeah. You and I have talked about
also the cost of spice. Like you know, when I
was doing Mexico searching for Mexico, they were saying vanilla
is the second most expensive spice after saffron, because it's
so labor intend Saffron so labor intensive because it's they're
actual little.
Speaker 1 (18:15):
Petals or little the little stamens of the crocus one.
Speaker 2 (18:19):
Yeah, but what was the cost back then in Europe
to you know, if they were in so demand, these
spices were like so in demand and being exported along
all of these routes, Like, was were they expensive? Was
it considered like, you know, I don't know.
Speaker 1 (18:36):
A luxury, absolute luxury. They're so expensive. So there's a
historian m and Pearson. He writes about the cost requard
to get spices to Europe via the traditional Middle Eastern routes, says,
the price of a kilo of pepper as it changed
hands was enormous. So it costs one or two grams
(18:56):
of silver at the production point, and then once it
reached Alexandria in Egypt, it was ten to fourteen, fourteen
to eighteen in Venice, and then in the consumer countries
of Europe twenty to thirty. So it went from costing
like one gram of silver to thirty grams of silver.
So this is why, because it was so luxurious, everybody
(19:18):
wanted their hands on it, which I find so interesting
because now we open up our pantries and.
Speaker 2 (19:22):
We all have it her everywhere.
Speaker 3 (19:25):
They're not expensive.
Speaker 2 (19:26):
Well, vanilla still it real Mexican vanilla is the most expensive.
If you're if you're in a store and you see
a vanilla for ninety nine cents and one another bottle
right next to it for twenty dollars, that's because the
ninety nine cent one is not vanilla. It's the Nain
which is a synthetic vanilla, and the twenty dollars bottle
(19:48):
is real vanilla. So you look, look, look at the
labels exactly exactly.
Speaker 1 (19:54):
And also saffron is still really expensive, and cardamom is
also pretty expensive because those are really.
Speaker 2 (19:59):
Yeah, I love card I think I like cardam and
more than cinnamon.
Speaker 1 (20:02):
Oh really, I love them both, yea love. I love
the smell of cardim It's amazing.
Speaker 2 (20:07):
So so how were spices? You know, I don't associate
Europe with spices, So when you talk about like Europe
loved and wanted all these spices, I'm like, what did
they use it for? Because for me it's like in
Europe it's such clean cooking. And I find like India, China, Mexico,
they really we really use a lot of spices, Like,
(20:30):
how were spices used in Europe?
Speaker 1 (20:31):
Yeah, that's so interesting that you say that, because you're right,
spices at one point, like during the Middle Ages, they
were they wanted their hands on it, right on ginger
and clothes and cinnamon, all of this, and even the
lower classes when they could afford it, they would get pepper,
so they would use them so much in cooking. They
(20:53):
believe they had medicinal value, like black pepper was considered
a treatment for coffs and asthma and could wounds, and
cinnamon helped cure fevers. It was burned like incense and
so in churches and brothels everywhere to improve the odors
of the day. But it changed, like right now, we
(21:13):
don't really associate Europe with a lot of spices because
when they became more readily available, they weren't seen as
a source of wealth and status.
Speaker 3 (21:23):
So then they start cooking.
Speaker 1 (21:24):
With herbs, with butter, and it was more about the
mouth feel and this, and it just became something different.
Speaker 3 (21:30):
It just kind of lost their their I don't know,
they're they're.
Speaker 1 (21:36):
Oomph But even gemstones and semi precious stones were often
categorized as spices. Stones like topas were thought to ease hemorrhoids.
Lapislazo was good for malaria. And I hope people don't
start doing this today because there's so much crazy stuff
going on. Empowdered pearls mixed with was taking to prevent
(22:01):
old age.
Speaker 3 (22:03):
Powdered pearls mixed with spices.
Speaker 2 (22:05):
We've got lots more after the break, stay with us.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
So Eva, let's talk about some of the most popular spices.
Speaker 3 (22:17):
Can you guess some of them?
Speaker 2 (22:20):
I mean, cinnamon has to be. Cinnamon has to be.
Why haven't even seen this list? Cinnamon and pet I mean, oh,
is pepper a spice?
Speaker 3 (22:28):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (22:29):
Okay, pepper, Yeah, cinnamon and pepper are up there.
Speaker 3 (22:32):
Yeah, cinnamon, pepper, clave. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
All of the ones that we're mentioning, except for clothes.
We didn't really talk about clothes. But I love this
story about cinnamon. Merchants would tell stories that to harvest cinnamon,
they would have to set out large chunks of raw
meat near the nests of a cinemologous bird a mythical bird,
and the birds would swoop down and carry off the
(22:56):
limbs of these beasts to their nests, and the nests
would break and fall down and then Arabians would approach
and collect what they wanted. So this is nonsense. Cinnamon
comes from the bark of a tree.
Speaker 2 (23:11):
I was gonna say, well, miss, now I'm confused. What
is cinnamon? Isn't it? I was like, is it a stem?
Is it? Is it a root? It's the bark of
a tree.
Speaker 3 (23:21):
Cinnamon is the bark of a tree.
Speaker 1 (23:23):
But there the merchants would create these crazy stories just
to hike up the price of the cinnamon. And during
the Middle Ages it was one of the favored spices.
It was regarded as an aphrodisiac.
Speaker 2 (23:39):
So it's endemic to Sri Lanka, India. Yeah, and marra mar.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
And then there are some really interesting videos and you'll
see people taking a tool and like imagine like a
thick flad heead screwdriver, and they're just just you know
how it comes in little.
Speaker 2 (23:55):
Like shaving it off, shaving it off. Yeah, exactly where
does cumin come from? Greeks?
Speaker 1 (24:01):
Cuman is also native to the eastern Mediterranean and also
South Asia and oldest reference to Cuman dates back about
five thousand years. They're both as a mummification ingredient for
Egyptian pharaohs.
Speaker 3 (24:17):
Yeah, lots of stories.
Speaker 2 (24:19):
I know, there's so many cool stories. I remember. I
know the story about black pepper being called black gold
and it was like the King of spices because it
was so widely consumed. Which is so interesting, because I
find black pepper to be boring. Really, I find it
very I don't use a lot of it. I find
it very one note. I'd rather if I want spice
like heat in something, I would rather use cayenne, chipotlet,
(24:44):
ancho Chile. I mean, black pepper is not my go to,
which is interesting.
Speaker 3 (24:50):
Yeah, I do use a lot of black pepper for
me when I do.
Speaker 1 (24:53):
If I do cayenne or something like that, it brings
a different flavor profile.
Speaker 2 (24:58):
So yeah, I like the mixed pepper corns, the red,
the white, the black. Like I like like the mix.
I'm not a fan of like black pepper. I feel
like it's so one note.
Speaker 3 (25:12):
So you don't use like salt pepper, you just use
salt and.
Speaker 2 (25:15):
Anything else, salt, garlic, cumi, other stuff. Yeah, I rarely
use pepper, rarely use pepper. I covered this a lot
in searching for Mexico, but there's so many spices that
are that are native to the America is obviously vanilla.
We've talked about vanilla chile, which is technically a fruit,
but we now use it as as spice. We have
(25:39):
a vanilla and a chili episode if you guys want
to want to try those out. What I've never used achiote?
What do you use that one?
Speaker 3 (25:49):
I don't. I don't use it.
Speaker 2 (25:51):
I mean, that's a fruit, isn't it.
Speaker 3 (25:53):
It's a spice. It's a it's a spice.
Speaker 2 (25:55):
That's Oh, that's right, that's the one from your terrier.
That's the almost Yeah, the paste.
Speaker 3 (26:09):
So I do when I make that, I do use it.
Speaker 1 (26:12):
I buy the riccatto, but I don't typically have the you.
Speaker 2 (26:17):
Know whole Well you should because it's an aphrodisiac.
Speaker 3 (26:21):
Oh, that's true. Right now.
Speaker 2 (26:24):
It's associated with the fertility gods. It is, That's what
it was. And then what's all spice? All spice? All
spice is native to the America.
Speaker 1 (26:35):
It is, it is, and it's like a giant it
looks like a giant pepper corn. And it's called allspice
because it smells like all of the spices. It smells
like a combination of pepper and nutmeg and cinnamon and
all of it, but it was used in seasoning and
also in perfumery. And it grows. Yeah, it grows along
the Gulf coast from Veracruz to Yucatan.
Speaker 3 (26:58):
I love all spice. Well.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
I hope this episode inspires people to clean out your spices,
organize yours zes. I hope this episode inspires people to
actually open your palate to new spices. Yeah, you know, like,
let's try some try cardiman instead of cinnamon, try the
red pepper flake as opposed to black party, Like, try
(27:21):
try tomn spices because the history of them is really fascinating. Well,
thanks for listening, you guys. I hope this was a
fascinating for you as it was for me in my day.
Speaker 3 (27:34):
Thank you for listening everyone.
Speaker 2 (27:36):
Thanks, goodbye bye, Hungary for History is a hyphen media
production in partnership with Iheart's my podcast network.
Speaker 1 (27:45):
For more of your favorite shows, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Hosts And Creators
MAITE GOMEZ-REJÓN
Eva Longoria
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