Try something new! Our featured spice for the month of September is ground cloves. You’re welcome to pick up a Spice Club kit beginning Tuesday September 2nd at 9am. The kit will contain:
- a sample of the spice
- recipe cards
- history of the spice
- a list of cookbooks you can check out from the library
Spice Club kits go fast! Unable to make it in time to grab one of your own? Try out a recipe! The recipes included in the kit are linked below.
Ground Cloves Quick Facts
- Clove is a tropical evergreen tree whose small reddish brown flower buds are used as a spice
- Cloves are thought to have originated from Moluccas or the Spice Islands of Indonesia and were crucial to the earliest spice trade
- As early as 200 BCE envoys to the Han-dynasty court of China used cloves to make their breath smell better when near the emperor; during the late Middle Ages cloves were used in Europe to preserve, flavor, and garnish food; in the early 17th century “Dutch eradicated cloves on all islands except Amboina and Ternate in order to create scarcity and sustain high prices”; in the late half of the 18th century French smuggled cloves to the Indian Ocean islands and the New World to break the Dutch monopoly; in the 21st century Indonesia is the world’s largest cloves producer
- The clove tree grows to about 25 to 40 feet and is a characteristic Christmas flavoring
- It is strong in aroma and hot and pungent in taste
Questions about Spice Club? Contact Ashley at 315-785-7714 or send her an email.