History of Spices (from my mom, Ranu Chatterjee)

Did you guys know that in the early days , black pepper was used as currency? It was as valuable as gold -- cinnamon, black pepper, ginger, cardamoms, cloves and turmeric were regularly bought by the Phoenicians and other traders -- all these spices were grown mostly in the south of India. Also,  --oh -- nutmeg and mace which are part of the same nut -mace is the outer orange strands,while nutmeg is the inner seed-- were also valued a lot for their flavour. A great favourite Bengali sweet called dourbesh--made of chickpea flour, fried in ghee, soaked in thick sugar syrup, then rolled in dry mild solids(powder) sprinkled with very finely ground nutmeg--we call nutmeg ''jaiphal'',and mace is ''javitri''--used to be made by my mother at home in Dehra Dun, where I grew up--she loved making all kinds of Bengali sweets and we all benefited by her expertise --there would be oodles of sweets for dessert or whenever we asked for them . The only rule was we would point out what we wanted to eat --and either she or one of my older sisters would serve the sweets -- she was very strict on hygiene and we --that is my siblings and I -- were not allowed to step in the pantry or ''bhandar"/store --if we were in school clothes. Wish my mum were alive --she could teach us to make so many good things to eat .---miss her so much . Sorry --got carried away by childhood memories. Love and hugs, Ma