Cloves are the dried, unopened flower buds of Eugenia caryophyllus, an evergreen tree indigenous to a group of a small volcanic islands in the Moluccas, once named the “Spice Islands” by Portuguese and Dutch traders who visited them for cloves, mace and nutmegs.
The trees flourish best near the coast.
The essential oil is a powerful antiseptic as we may recognize from our visit to the dentist where it is used as the basis for a powerful mouthwash.
The oil is also numbing and used on the gums for toothache as a home cure. So we have to be delicate when we are using cloves in cooking because the smallest amount can be overpowering.
The flavour of cloves is strong, sweet, hot and very distinctive. Cloves are used with discretion in some spices mixtures as they tend to swamp delicate flavours.
They are used in Indonesia in a mixture of 1:2 with tobacco in then production of clove cigarettes, called kretek, which is a major industry.
In India, cloves are used in the preparation of the betel nut quid; it is customary in Asia to chew a clove to sweeten the breath.
The Cloves (Myrtaceae)
