“Too much cardamom,” he said. How could he tell?

Too much cardamom? I couldn't taste it. How Ayurveda trained my tongue, and why taste is the first step to better digestion.

The world of spices...

Years ago I made my morning porridge for a friend with whom I was staying. Upon tasting it he said: ‘nice, but there is too much cardamom in it’. I remember being surprised. Too much cardamom? I tasted food. Tasty food, I thought. How could he pick one spice out of a whole pan?

I grew up with Dutch cuisine, where the spice shelf contained salt, pepper, curry, nutmeg, cinnamon and I think that was about it. Nutmeg over the cauliflower or the beans. Salt, pepper, and some cinnamon for the sweet stuff. Later, when I learned to cook, I had a whole cupboard of spices and followed recipes to the letter. The food turned out tasty, and I couldn’t have told you what most spices were doing in there.

So no, I couldn’t taste “too much cardamom”. My tongue simply hadn’t been trained yet.
The biggest change for that happened in my first year of Ayurveda school, in the herbology module. We learned to taste spices one at a time: what does it do in your mouth, which qualities do you notice as taste, and in your body? Warming or cooling, drying or moistening, sharp or soft. It sounds a bit abstract, but when you try it a whole world opens up, or at least, it did for me.

Spices are an ongoing discovery

These days I blend my own spice mixes for each season, and the tasting never stops. When I toast the seeds, I smell what rises off them. When my breakfast mix turns out too cardamomy, I notice it myself these days.

Coriander seed is one of my favourites, for taste and for the benefits it has. It’s sweet, a bit bitter and has a pungency to it. The coriander leaves however are something I need to dose very carefully. Lately I discovered kasoori fenugreek leaves, they’re amazing!

Spices to support your digestion

And here’s what your tongue is telling you at every meal: taste is information. It’s your body’s first impression of what’s coming, and it teases your agni, your digestive fire. And like every sense, it gets more developed with attention.

Try it tonight. Take one spice from your rack, smell it carefully (trust me, don’t inhale ginger, cinnamon, or any spice really), put it on your tongue and taste it, take your time and see what happens. What do you notice beyond “tasty”?

Tomorrow evening, in Ayurveda’s Autumn Kitchen, we do exactly this together: tasting the spices that carry your digestion through autumn, and noticing what your body has to say about them.

Much love,
Rianne