Yesterday we left Munnar area and drove to Thekkady and along the way we stopped at a Spice Garden. We had seen one a few days ago, but that was just focused on ayurvedic medicinal plants, which is fine, but I am more interested in cooking spices. :)
Most of the photos I took were of ornamental flowers, but I did get some occasional spices, too. We saw Vanilla, cinnamon and nutmeg too, but they were not too photogenic… they make up for that with the amazing scents and flavors! And I learned Indian bay leaves (tejpatta) come from a tree closely related to cinnamon, and whose bark is often used as cinnamon. Standard western bay leaves come from the Mediterranean bay laurel tree (Laurus nobilis), which is entirely separate from cinnamon trees (Cinnamomum).
