Thursday, April 4

The Spice Island

We took a trip one afternoon to Laura's Herb and Spice Garden located in St. David on the southern part of the island.  Grenada is all about the sea, the sun and the sand.  But one must not forget the fourth "S" for Spice.  Grenada is known the world over for being the Isle of Spice.  Laura's Herb and Spice Garden is a place to take an educational tour of the numerous samples of trees, herbs and spices grown on the island.  Many of the plants are also used for medicinal purposes, some of which are exported for use in patented medicines and in exotic restaurants worldwide.

This gentleman was walking down the road with ease


The pathways through the garden were covered in nutmeg shells

Now that is one large cactus

A Damson tree covered in its small yellow, firm fruit that is boiled twice and then the third time, sugar is added to make jam.

Kate tasting the sweet and tangy tamarind fruit pulp inside the brown pod

A large Tamarind tree covered in pods.  I grew up on Tamarind St.

The kids are tasting a Damson fruit from the tree.  It is quite tart and has a fuzzy texture on the tongue when eaten raw

Sour Sop fruit is eaten raw when it's ripe and also used to make ice cream from the pulp.  The leaves can be used to make a tea for insomnia.

Achiote pod.  The little red fruits are removed and steeped in water to extract the color.  Small amounts of this red color is added to give the signature color to the dishes in the Caribbean.

A nutmeg tree.  Nutmeg was brought to Grenada in 1843.  Today they grow 40% of the worlds production.  

The yellow pod on the right is a nutmeg.  Inside the yellow shell is another, smaller shell with the red lace around it.  The red lace is mace.  It is removed and processed separately.  Then the brown outer shell is broken open to reveal the nutmeg seed.

Cocoa pods growing on the chocolate tree.  The pods are unique in that they grow on the branches of the tree and not from the leaves.

Vanilla bean vine.  The flowers have to be manually pollenated in order to produce the vanilla bean.

Botannical, family and scientific names

Tasting the cocoa beans inside the cocao pod.  They have a sweet tart lemony flavor.

Reese gets some aloe to spread on her mosquito bites

Pineapple

1 comment:

  1. Hello, thanks for sharing. One thing, though, I'm pretty sure the fruit in the picture listed as 'sour sop' is actually the 'noni' fruit. 'Soursop' is dark green with spikes and florally fragrant when ripe, whereas 'noni' is soft/mushy/smelly and white on the outside. The first time I saw the noni, I thought it was some kind of soursop...until I touched and smelled it.

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