A toast to midsummer / Beach Haven, NJ / June 21, 2007
"... And from Chamba I sailed to Java, which is the greatest island in the world. Java is fifteen hundred miles from Chamba, south and southeast, and it took me four months sailing, but a sea-captain cannot pass Java by, for it is the chief place for black pepper, nutmegs, spikenard1, galingale2, cubebs3, cloves, and all the spices that grow."
~ an excerpt from Messer Marco Polo by Donn Byrne (publ. 1921)
1 Spikenard: a flowering plant with pink, bell-shaped flowers; its underground stems can be crushed and distilled into an intensely aromatic amber-colored essential oil; Nard is mentioned twice in the biblical love poem, the Song of Solomon (1:12 and 4:13).
2 Galingale: a rhizome with culinary and medicinal uses; in its raw form, it has a soapy, earthy aroma and a pine-like flavor with a faint hint of citrus; it is said to have the effect of an aphrodisiac, and act as a stimulant; a mixture of galingale and lime juice is used as a tonic in parts of Southeast Asia.
3 Cubebs: cultivated for its fruit and essential oil, and sometimes called Java pepper, its fruits are gathered before they are ripe, and carefully dried. The odor of cubebs is described as agreeable and aromatic -- the taste, pungent, acrid, slightly bitter and persistent; it's been used both medicinally and to flavor foods, gin, and cigarettes.
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