US Leads World in Spice Imports

[Ben]

I had no idea. From the article, it seems to be a combination of climate (for some spices) and just overwhelming infrastructure already set up for corn, etc.

It seems like we have enough sub-tropical farmable land that we could make some inroads into some of the more exotic spices if the profit were there. Certainly onions and garlic (which you could argue about being spices, but they are included in the article) grow over a wide area of the country.

Anyway, the spice must flow!

https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2017/12/26/572100613/americans-love-spices-so-why-don-t-we-grow-them

[K Frame]

Hum....

They're playing fast and loose with their terminology...

They're classifying everything as spices, even herbs like oregano. Anything that's the leaf or stem of a plant is an herb, and those are generally a LOT easier to grow than spices.

[Ben]

Yeah, several of the things they mentioned in the article, I have never considered as spices. NPR is highbrow, and I am lowbrow, so I just figured I wasn't up on the current gourmet terminology. 

[Firethorn]

They're classifying everything as spices, even herbs like oregano. Anything that's the leaf or stem of a plant is an herb, and those are generally a LOT easier to grow than spices.

Given that I keep my oregano in my spice cabinet with other stuff, I'd consider it a 'spice'.  It's even sold in the spice section of the store.  I'd go with spices being parts of the dish added for taste/appearance that is in insufficient quantity to add any significant nutrition.

A dusting of pepper changes the taste a lot, but might add maybe a calorie.  I'm sure it has antioxidants and such, but there's not enough in most dishes to really matter.

[K Frame]

You don't have separate spice and herb cabinets?

*expletive deleted*ing heathen.