Experience the Jungles of Guatemala in Provo
By OTTO NUILA, UPP Contributor—
You may never make it to the jungles of Guatemala, but there is a way you can bring those same jungles to you right here in Provo.
“ORO” is the nickname of the dried seed of a Guatemalan jungle cash crop. Cardamomo is its Spanish name, but we know it as cardamom in English. Oro, meaning gold in Spanish, is a good description because the cardamom seed is literally worth its weigh in gold.
Cardamom is a spice rarely used in American cooking but very well know in the foods of Latin America, India, Scandinavia and the Middle East. Scandinavians use it like nutmeg in their baking, Indians include it in their curry, and in the Middle East many use it to spice up their hot coffees and teas. Here in Provo you can enjoy the spice by making a cup of hot chocolate a little more interesting by adding a crushed seed of cardamom. Another one of my favorite uses is to add some cardamom to my oatmeal along with a splash of vanilla extract. Below is another cardamom recipe for the most delicious bread to have with your hot chocolate.
The aroma of cardamom evokes a memory of my visits to the airport in Coban, Alta Vera Paz, Guatemala. It is there where “squadrons” of Cessna bush pilots fly in and out of the Guatemalan jungles to pick up the cardamom “quintales” or gunny sacks that indigenous farmers have filled with cardamom grown on their plots of land. The only way to access the goods of some of these farmers is by air with a rough landing on a dirt strip. Yes, there are many airplane wreckages out in the jungle as a reminder of an overweight takeoff or the cow that decided to take a stroll across the strip on landings roll.........
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Experience the Jungles of Guatemala in Provo
