On Food and Cooking

that ripen at different times, so the capsules
must be picked by hand one by one, and
slightly before full ripeness, when the capsule
splits. The word comes from an Arabic root
meaning “to warm”; and cardamom has a
delicate, warming quality due to two different
sets of aromatics, both stored in a layer just
below the seed surface: a group of floral,
fruity, and sweet terpene compounds (linalool
and acetate esters), and more penetrating,
eucalyptus-like cineole.
There are two broadly different varieties of
cardamom: Malabar, a small, round capsule
with a high content of delicate, flowery
compounds, and Mysore, a larger, three-
angled capsule with mainly pine, woody, and
eucalyptus notes. Both are slightly astringent
and pungent. Malabar cardamom develops its
best flavor after the pods have begun to turn
from green to off-white, so it is usually
available only in bleached form, after sun-
drying or chemical bleaching to make the pod