Kerala Vacation – Excerpts from the Spice Plantation tour

Our vacation to India in December included a one week vacation to God’s own country. On our drive from Munnar to Thekkady, our driver Ratheesh recommended to us a tour of the Spice Plantation. All four of us had an extremely fun and educational few hours learning about all the spices that make our cooking unique and flavorful.

Here is our trip in pictures with some information I can recollect from all the details the tour guide filled us with on these spices. The first plant on our tour was the tobacco plant. The OH & I thought it was interesting they started of their tour with this plant.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This was followed by one that is close to our hearts, the insulin plant, given that most of the OH’s family (him included) have embraced this antidote for life thanks to dealing with diabetes for generations. The OH & I were of the opinion that insulin was a chemical that was manufactured and were pleasantly surprised to hear that it is also a plant derivative. Here is the OH with the insulin plant… 

 

Our next stop was a chilli plant that was different from the usual ones found in the market. Here is a not so clear picture of the light green chillies. Look carefully to notice the yellowish chillies sticking out of the branches.

 

 

 

 

We next moved on to the various spices. The various kinds of pollinations were explained to us in detail. The cardomom grows via honey bee pollination. There is an interesting story behind the cardamom plantation. It is apparently the women’s job to pluck the cardomoms from the plant since it grows at the bottom of the plant and is extremely strenuous on the back. The women, it seems can handle this stress on their backs much better than the men folk (how convenient!). Therefore it is the women who predominantly employed to pluck the cardomoms when the time is right.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Following the cardomom was the vanilla bean plant. It was explained to us that the vanilla bean is expensive because it grows via manual pollination. The plantation owner hires help from local residents to come in on a foggy morning at the crack of dawn to manually pollinate each bean pod. Flowering normally occurs every spring and without pollination the blossom wilts and falls, and no vanilla bean can grow. Each flower must be hand-pollinated within 12 hours of opening. All vanilla grown today is pollinated by hand. A small splinter of wood or a grass stem is used to lift the rostellum or moved the flap upward so that the overhanging anther can be pressed against the stigma and self pollinate the vine. Meg holding the vanilla bean.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The next was the pineapple plant. It was interesting to learn about the effort that went into growing this fruit and the chemical pollination that takes place to cultivate this tasty fruit.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Next in line was the black pepper. This plant grows via rain pollination and it was explained to us that as the rain water trickles down the tiny peppers, pollination occurs. When the rain water does not flow down uniformly the peppers in the bottom don’t grow enough and have to be discarded. These are then dried to be sold in the markets as whole black & white peppers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In all the years that I have been cooking with cinnamon & bay leaf, the one fact about them that I did not know is that they are both from the same plant. The leaves of the cinnamon plant is the bay leaf and the bark is peeled of to be sold as the cinnamon stick.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My school back home growing up was in one of the most beautifual campus and was known for it’s forest, deer, monkeys and banyan trees. Many years of lunch break was spent under the wonderful banyan trees that extended to cover a significant portion of our playground and give us a wonderful shade from the sun. In the spice plantation, we got to see a very different kind of banyan tree. This one was the kind that grows almost like a creeper. Here is a picture. Never had I seen one like this before.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In the midst of all these wonderful plants, here is a lovely hideout, a tree house built for tourists to enjoy & for the plantation employees to sit in and guard the plantations from the animals at night.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Last but not the least, here is a beautiful picture of the lush tea plantations that covered the landscape as far as the eyes could see.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There were so many more plants that we didn’t take pictures of. Some of them are the rudraksh tree, the leaves used to make incense, the nagalinga flower that is special for Lord Shiva. It was an amazing experience indeed.

The person who made this trip memorable for us with his rich knowledge of all these spices was our tour guide, who nurtured, guarded and shared his love for this plantation. Here he is explaining to us about yet another plant.