The spices that moved the world

Rose petal

Dried petals for Persian rice, Moroccan tagines, and a cupboard that wants perfume.

Pandan

The vanilla of Southeast Asia, except it is a leaf you knot and simmer.

Curry leaf

The South Indian tadka leaf — popped in oil until the kitchen smells like breakfast.

Shiso

Perilla: mint, basil, and cinnamon in one Japanese leaf, around sashimi or in a pickle.

Avocado leaf

Toasted hoja de aguacate: anise and nut, the Oaxacan leaf that seasons beans.

Fenugreek leaf

Kasuri methi — dried fenugreek leaves crushed over a finished curry for a maple-bitter perfume.

Korerima

Ethiopian cardamom: larger, smokier, and the seed berbere cannot do without.

Persian lime

Limoo amani: dried whole limes that a Persian stew hollows for sour and smoke.

Salep

Orchid-tuber flour that thickens winter milk in Turkey and Greece.

Matcha

Stone-ground shade tea — bitter, sweet, and now in every pastry case, still a Japanese bowl first.

Dried orange peel

Chen pi and European candied peel — bitter citrus that a braise or a cookie both want.

Lemon zest

The oil in the skin: the brightest way the books add citrus without juice.

Mace

The lacy aril of nutmeg — finer, sharper, a European sauce spice.

Fennel seed

Anise-sweet seed of sausages, taralli, and a South Indian tempering.

Fenugreek

The maple-bitter seed in berbere, methi, and a hundred pickles.

Star anise

The star that sweetens a broth without sugar.

Anise

The seed that is not star anise: European baking, Mexican cookies, a glass of pastis.

White pepper

The same vine as black, soaked and hulled — heat without the dark specks, a Chinese and French habit.

Sichuan pepper

Not a pepper: a citrus-numbing husk that makes mapo and dry-fried chicken hum.

Sanshō

Japan's Zanthoxylum — the tingle on unagi and the cousin of Sichuan pepper.

Mustard seed

The pop in a tadka and the bite in a pickle.

Nigella

The black seed on a loaf, looking like onion seed and tasting like oregano and onion.

Ajwain

Thyme-adjacent, sharper, the seed Indian cooks throw into dough and tadka.

Celery seed

The Old Bay backbone and the Eastern European soup-spice.