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Tamarind might sound — and taste — unfamiliar to many, but one influential company known for its spices and seasonings predicts it’s going to have a breakthrough year. McCormick & Company, the top-selling maker of seasonings and spices, has named tamarind as its 2024 “Flavor of the Year.” The report, released yearly since 2000, identifies trending spices and seasonings about to hit restaurant menus or in cookbooks and perhaps become the new pumpkin spice. Tamarind comes from a tree that commonly grows throughout Africa, Mexico, Asia and India, and produces pods containing the acidic and tangy-sweet flavor that can be...

Archaeologists have found remnants of eight spices on a sandstone slab from an archaeological site in Vietnam, showing the early adoption of ingredients and techniques from South Asia.Unearthed in an ancient village in southern Vietnam, the cookware—roughly the size and shape of an anvil—was likely used to grind the spice and other ingredients familiar in today’s curries...An analysis of 717 grains of starch recovered from the tools revealed the presence of eight different spices: turmeric, ginger, galangal, sand ginger, fingerroot, clove, nutmeg, and cinnamon. Many of the grains also showed signs of deformation, indicating that they had been damaged during...

[H/T ExTexasRedhead] Heads up folks!This is a major consumer products alert…Do you love to cook with spices?Of course, who doesn’t?Variety is the spice of life, and spices are the, uhhhh, spice of cooking!But what happens when you reach for the Onion Powder or the Oregano, and along with those you get a heavy dose of Arsenic?Arsenic would otherwise be known as literal “rat poison”.Or Cadmium, which is a heavy metal.Or Lead!You know how we can no longer use lead-based-paint or leaded gasoline because of how toxic it is to humans?What if the big companies had been putting it in your...

In the summer of 1495, King Hans of Denmark and Norway anchored his warship off the southern coast of Sweden. While Hans was on land, his vessel—known as Gribshunden or Griffen—mysteriously caught fire and sank to the bottom of the Baltic Sea.Hans was on his way to Kalmar, where he hoped to be elected king of Sweden and reunite the broader Nordic region under a single ruler. As such, Hans brought many opulent status symbols, including luxurious foods and spices, to help persuade the Swedish leadership to agree to his plan.Remarkably, many of those foods and spices have survived underwater...

Chilling new details emerged Tuesday in the Texas border horror that left at least 51 migrants dead — including how victims stuffed in the truck were allegedly sprinkled with steak seasoning to mask their odor.

For those who think financial fraud or circulating fake currencies is a modern day phenomenon, an ancient Roman coin mould on display at the Department of Archaeology, Museums and Heritage in the city is a startling revelation. The Roman coin mould, which is being displayed for the first time since its excavation in 1993, indicates that fake coins were in circulation around 19 to 20 centuries ago. The terracotta mould is among the most important objects displayed at the exhibition, apart from terracotta figurines, iron objects, bronze dies, stone beads. M S Krishnamurthy, a retired professor of Archaeology who led...

One way to understand the implications of the archaeological discoveries at Pattanam is to delve into the amazing wealth of data from the excavations at the lost Ptolemic-Roman port city of Berenike, on Egypt's Red Sea coast. During the Ptolemic-Roman period (third century B.C. to sixth century A.D), Berenike served as a key transit port between ancient Egypt and Rome on one side and the Red Sea-Indian Ocean regions, including South Arabia, East Africa, India and Sri Lanka, on the other. This ancient port city was well-connected by roads from the Nile that passed through the Eastern Desert of Egypt...

Pattanam, a small village located 25 km north of Kochi, is the new pilgrimage spot on the international archaeological map. This quiet place, archaeologists now confirm, was once the flourishing port known to the Romans as Muziris and sung in praise by the Tamil Sangam poets as Muciri. Every year since 2005, excavations have yielded artefacts, structures and even a canoe in one instance to confirm this conclusion. This year has also been productive for archaeologists. A figure of a pouncing lion carved in great detail on a semi precious stone and a bright micro metal object with intricate designs...

Archaeologists unearth Roman era artefacts in Kerala From our ANI Correspondent Pattanam (Kerala), Mar 23: What began as exploratory studies in Kerala, has thrown up enough artefacts and structures of two millennia old Indo-Roman trade era to delight archaeologists, who are looking for the lost port of Muziris. Archaeological teams in Pattanam village, near the port city of Kochi have been working on a site, which has yielded pottery, amphora, beads and other artefacts that are reminiscent of the ancient Romans. "The initial studies carried out in this region have amply indicated that there was a Roman presence. The Roman...

PATTANAM, India -- Pottery shards, beads, Roman copper coins, and ancient wine bottles litter the strata beneath this small seaside village in India's southern Kerala state. The 250 families, mostly agricultural laborers, who live in Pattanam, 260 kilometers (161 miles) north of Kerala's capital Thiruvananthapuram, find the objects pretty, but would rather dig up the ground and build larger homes. But according to archaeologists K.P. Shajan and V. Selvakumar, they may be destroying the remnants of Muziris, a well-documented trading port where Rome and India met almost 3,000 years ago. They say that, based on remote sensing data, a river...

Search for India's ancient city Roman amphora pieces abound in Pattanam Archaeologists working on India's south-west coast believe they may have solved the mystery of the location of a major port which was key to trade between India and the Roman Empire - Muziris, in the modern-day state of Kerala. For many years, people have been in search of the almost mythical port, known as Vanchi to locals. Much-recorded in Roman times, Muziris was a major centre for trade between Rome and southern India - but appeared to have simply disappeared. Now, however, an investigation by two archaeologists - KP...

Well, it turns out things haven't gone so good for wokester company, Penzey's Spices, which ran a 'Republicans are racist' campaign for .. I am not sure what purpose, it wasn't business. According to Fox News: A Wisconsin-based spice company that made headlines earlier this month when its CEO sent an email to customers accusing Republicans of racism is now asking people to buy gift cards after hemorrhaging tens of thousands of customers. Earlier this month, Penzeys Spices CEO Bill Penzey renamed the extended Martin Luther King, Jr. Day weekend to be "Republicans are racist weekend" in a newsletter to...

Penzey’s Spices, the Milwaukee company that held “Republicans are Racist” sale on Martin Luther King Weekend, is now dealing with a massive loss of customers and is begging for new business. “After starting the year with Republicans are Racists we’ve set a nice little Boycott Penzeys! surge in motion,” Penzey’s CEO Bill Penzey said in an email to customers Friday. “It certainly wasn’t unexpected, but if it’s within your means, you picking up a small stack of Gift Cards would help.” Penzey admitted that the “Republicans are Racists” email cost his business 40,000 subscribers, roughly three percent of the total....

Penzey's Spices, the Milwaukee-based company that held "Republicans are Racist Weekend" sale on Martin Luther King, Jr. Weekend earlier this month, is now dealing with a massive loss of customers and is now all but begging for new business. "After starting the year with All Republicans are Republicans and following up with Republicans are Racists we’ve set a nice little Boycott Penzeys! surge in motion," Penzey's CEO Bill Penzey said in an email to customers Friday. "It certainly wasn’t unexpected, but if it’s within your means, you picking up a small stack of Gift Cards would help." Penzey admitted that...

Remember those great early-pandemic days last spring when bags of flour and yeast suddenly became precious items? Wasn’t that fun? Well, great news, everybody: we’re going to get to experience them all over again. As we’ve noted before, grocers are a little more prepared this time around and have been stocking “pandemic pallets” of food they can reorder quickly, but some things will still be hard to find. Mashed has thoughtfully prepared a list: Baking supplies. It’s now chilly enough to turn the oven on again, plus the spectre of holiday baking looms Canned soups. Both General Mills and Campbell’s...

Bill Penzey, the controversial owner of Penzey’s Spices, emailed his customers on Thursday to inform them he’s been selling bad chicken soup base that needs to be recalled. He wrote: "If you have chicken soup base from us please check your jar’s best by dates to see if yours has been recalled. The lot numbers are: 00139, 01839, 01049, SEP0820VAN, and OCT1420VAN. These were sold from 3.16.19 onward. If you have one of these jars, don’t use it and see the instructions below for your refund. We just needed to mail this notice to our customers who are chicken soup...

What is curry? Today, the word describes a bewildering number of spicy vegetable and meat stews from places as far-flung as the Indian subcontinent, the South Pacific, and the Caribbean Islands. There is little agreement about what actually constitutes a curry. And, until recently, how and when curry first appeared was a culinary mystery as well. The term likely derives from kari, the word for sauce in Tamil, a South-Indian language. Perplexed by that region’s wide variety of savory dishes, 17th-century British traders lumped them all under the term curry. A curry, as the Brits defined it, might be a...

“There are but 155 years left … at which time … the world will come to an end,” wrote Christopher Columbus in his book “Libro de Las Profecias,” composed in 1502 between his third and fourth voyages. Columbus continued: “… The sign which convinces me that our Lord is hastening the end of the world is the preaching of the Gospel recently in so many lands.” Though his predictions were off, Columbus’ writings revealed his motivation for setting sail on his first voyage Aug. 3, 1492, with the Nina, Pinta and the Santa Maria. He sought to find a sea...

It's salty. It's sour. And it's often spicy. But kimchi is also an indispensable element of both Korean cuisine and culture. "The word kimchi simply means 'salted vegetable,'" says Saehee Chang, owner of Korea Konnect and Kosari Kimchi, a local product line based on Chang's mother's kimchi recipe. "And for Koreans, it's part of who we are. It's a constant seen at almost every meal. And it's a very strange thing to run into someone who is Korean who doesn't like kimchi." For many, including Chang, kimchi is also about making connections. "To me, kimchi represents community and coming together,"...

Just in time for Martin Luther King Day, Bill Penzey is calling every Trump voter a racist. To combat that racism, Penzeys Spices is giving away a free “mini Soul Box” – normally $14.95 plus shipping and handling – for just a shipping charge of $3.95. The box contains some cinnamon, some Cajun Seasoning and, yes, a rub for chicken and pork called “33rd and Galena.” “Just the right gift for anyone on your list working to keep the goodness of the American soul alive,” Penzeys Spices’ online catalog claims. If the small box of spices isn’t enough for you,...