Spice of Life!

No trip to Zanzibar would be complete without a trip to a spice farm.  Zanzibar has been referred to as a part of the 'Spice Islands'.

Here are a few of the interesting spices and fruits we saw:

Durian Fruit - I had heard about Durian from our friends who lived in China.  It is just as stinky as they reported.  The smell is kind of like stinky feet or rotting fruit.  This one wasn't quite ripe so we only got to smell it.  On one of George's business trips to Singapore they had a break between meetings to sample this fruit.  Because of the smell, they enjoyed eating it outside the office building.  After smelling it I'm not sure if using the word enjoy is appropriate!

Capers -Well we thought that our guide said that these were capers!  When I looked up capers I learned that these are not the traditional capers we think of in Mediterranean cooking.  This actually is kapok, a natural fiber which is light, very buoyant, resilient, resistant to water but very flammable.  On Zanzibar it is used to stuff pillows and mattresses.  Rinda and I both thought he called it 'capers'....old ears I guess or maybe we can blame it on his Swahili accent!

                          

Jackfruit - The largest of the tree-born fruits.  They can grow to be 80 pounds in weight, 36 inches in length and 20 inches in diameter. As you can see they grow close to the trunk of the tree.  A fruit that big couldn't dangle from a branch! The taste is a sort of combination of apple, pineapple, mango and banana.

Black Pepper - I didn't realize that black pepper grows on a creeper vine that 'creeps' up on another plant. 

I really like pepper so I recognized the taste immediately!

Cloves - The King of the Spices - Zanzibar once supplied most of the world's cloves but now only 8%.  During the time when cloves were the most prevalent export of this island, it is said that the breeze carried their scent!  That would have been so pleasant!

                         

Nutmeg & Mace - Nutmeg is the stone or seed of the tree.  Mace is made from the red webbing that surrounds the brown stone.  Two spices from one tree.  This is the only tropical fruit that is the source of two different spices.  The first harvest of nutmeg trees takes place 7-9 years after planting and the trees don't reach full production for about 20 years.

And finally Vanilla Beans -  This is another creeper plant.   This type of vanilla has to be pollinated by hand. 

 

After our spice education we enjoyed some fresh coconut water and coconut slices.  Delicious!

I love our hats, purses and necklaces, all made of banana leaves.  We were jungle queens for the day!!!