We are continuing our blog series, Winter Spice and Everything Nice, with the well known spice, clove (Syzygium aromaticum, Myrtaceae).
We have already talked about cinnamon and ginger. Once you add clove to this trilogy, you get the base to both chai spice blends and “pumpkin spice” blends.
Chai blends tend to add cardamom, star anise or fennel, and maybe black pepper. Pumpkin spice blends tend to add allspice and nutmeg.
Clove got its name from the Latin word clavus, which means “nail-shaped”, referring to the shape of the clove bud.
This common spice is a dried flower bud from a tropical evergreen tree. The clove tree leaves and bark are also very aromatic.
It is native to the Molucca Islands, also known as the Spice Islands, an archipelago in Indonesia. The tradition there is to plant a clove tree every time someone is born. This inevitably has led to an abundance of clove trees on these islands.
clove flower
History
Clove is one of the earliest spices that was traded out of its region. It has even been found, stored in ceramic vessels dating back to 1721 BCE, in Syria.
Cloves have been used in South East Asia for thousands of years and regarded as a panacea for many ills. In China, in 226 BCE, during the Han Dynasty, it was written, that in order for people to speak to the emperor, they first had to chew a clove to freshen their breath.
Historically clove was highly valued as a medicinal remedy in India. It was (and still is) a popular spice added to food for flavor and to aid digestion. It was also used in love potions. Today, cloves are known to be both digestive and aphrodisiac.
Historically, the Roman and Greek used cloves for medicine and to spice and preserve food. Cloves were imported into Alexandria, as early as, AD 176.
Cloves were introduced to Europe in the 4th century by Arabian spice traders, via Alexandria. They were worth their weight in gold, at this point, due to the distance the cloves traveled, as well as, their importance in food preservation and medicine. Spices, like clove and cinnamon, were considered valuable to excepted as currency, in Europe.
Through the centuries, the global clove trade was monopolized by different countries.. The Portuguese took it over from the Arabians in the 15th century, the Dutch took it over from the Portugese in the 17th century. In the later half of the 18th century the French smuggled cloves from the East Indies to the Indian Ocean islands and the “New World”, breaking the Dutch monopoly.
Today, Tanzania is the largest exporter of cloves in the world, most of which is grown on the island Zanzibar. Indonesia is still the largest producer of cloves in the world.
Harvest
The clove buds are harvested by hand, twice per year. Different buds, on the same tree, will mature at different times. Harvesting the small clumps of flower buds takes a delicate touch and a keen eye.
Once the buds are harvested, they must be removed from the their stems. This is also done by hand. They are then laid out on tarps and left to dry in the sun for several days.
The cloves turn from greenish-pink to reddish-brown, once dried. A very good quality clove, when pricked with a fingernail, will release a small amount of oil. Cloves are 15% volatile oil by dry weight. 70-90% of that volatile oil is a constituent called eugenol. This is what gives cloves a majority of their medicinal action.
Harvest clove buds.
Folklore
Clove is thought to be endowed with powers of protection, love, exorcism, and money.
Some people burn clove as an incense to attract money, drive away hostility and negativity, produce spiritual vibrations, and purify an area. It is said to be able to stop people from gossiping about you. When carried upon a person, it can attract romance and bring comfort to a bereaved heart.
Cloves are thought to enhance psychic abilities, especially when burned.
Energetics and Taste
Cloves are heating, drying, and stimulating. They are pungent, sweet, highly aromatic, warming, and slightly peppery.
Oral Health
Cloves can leave a lingering numbing sensation in the mouth, especially if you chew on a whole clove.
This is a major clue to one of their most popular medicinal actions and uses, to relieve toothaches. This is because they have a numbing, pain relieving property. They are also anti-inflammatory and anti-microbial.
As a side benefit, cloves improve bad breath with their delightful aroma and their ability to kill unhealthy bacteria.
Pain Relief
The eugenol in cloves is known to be an analgesic, relieving pain internally and externally.
Digestion
Cloves aromatic nature improves many aspects of digestion. It warms and eases indigestion, gas, bloating, and cramping.
In Chinese medicine, it is believed that cloves help chi (energy) to descend. This is helpful in relieving nausea and vomiting, as well as excessive burping and hiccoughs.
This aspect of clove can be specifically helpful for people who feel nauseous when they are nervous or anxious. It helps that nervous energy to descend down, instead of feeling like it is moving up and about to bring with it contents of one's stomach.
Clove helps the body use insulin more effectively. It is similar to cinnamon in its ability to normalize blood sugar levels.
Respiratory
Cloves are antispasmodic. This is due, in part, to the acetyl eugenol contained in its volatile oil.
This action not only relieves digestive upset and cramping, but it also relaxes coughs and muscle spasms through the body.
Cloves are expectorant in action, meaning they help to thin and break up mucous so that the lungs don’t have to work so hard to cough it up. Its antispasmodic action can also help alleviate mild asthma and unproductive coughs.
Cloves have a tradition of being smoked to help ease a cough and break up congestion. Clove powder is now added to tobacco and is popularly smoked in Indonesia. Clove cigarettes, called kreteks, were banned in the US, along with all other flavored (except menthol) tobacco cigarettes, in 2009.
Antimicrobial and more!
The volatile oil in clove is strongly antiseptic and antimicrobial. This means it fights bacteria, fungi, and viruses. It can be used to fight colds and flus, especially ones the affect the lungs and intestines. It also can be an effective remedy for laryngitis and pharyngitis, due to it’s additional numbing and anti-inflammatory properties.
Clove is a main ingredient in the historical Thieves Vinegar blend. The story goes, that this vinegar was used by grave robbers during the plague. It protected them from getting sick and meeting the same doom as those they robbed.
In tropical Asia, clove is used to treat malaria, cholera, tuberculosis, and parasites including scabies and intestinal worms.
Clove also has a reputation as an insect and moth repellant. Traditionally on the Molucca islands, oranges were studded with cloves and hung around as an insect repellent. This has, interestingly, been inherited and turned into holiday pomanders, to help spice up Christmas decorating in the US.
Circulation
Clove is a circulatory stimulant. It increases circulation and lowers blood pressure.
It can be added to herbal formulations to help carry the other herbs through the body more efficiently.
Eugenol, found in clove volatile oil, is a strong blood thinner. This can be helpful against altitude sickness.
Aphrodisiac
Clove is an aphrodisiac. No wonder it was used in love potions and as a charm to attract romance! Not only does it improve blood flow to sex organs, but it may be effective against impotence. The smell is considered euphoric by many and can help "get you in the mood".
Mental Health
Clove also has positive effects on the mind. Its helps blood and oxygen circulate to the brain. This is enlivening to the brain, helping to strengthen memory.
Clove can be uplifting to those feeling weak or depressed. The scent of cloves alone may be able to have this effect.
Antioxidant
Clove is anti-mutagenic and antioxidant, which are both properties that protect against cellular mutation and various cancers.
Clove’s antioxidant action as the ability to preserve vision into old age. A little bit of clove in tea or chai could be helpful for this.
As you can see, clove is a valuable health remedy to have on hand for many reasons. There are a lot of different ways that you can work with clove. You can chew the cloves whole, add them to food, drink them in tea (like chai), or apply them topically in a clove-infused massage oil.
Contraindications
Clove, in normal food or therapeutic amounts, has no known contraindications. Though it is good to know that it has a potential to thin the blood and lower blood sugar, so it could potentially increase the effect of drugs that do the same thing.
Clove essential oil is another story, however. It is extremely caustic and poisonous. Do not use it, ever. The whole cloves have enough of the volatile oil concentrated in them to be effective, without being poisonous.
Clove could also be contraindicated energetically. If someone is overheated, very dry, inflamed, or overly stimulated, then clove could exacerbate the situation.
Clove is a strong stimulant. If it is overused, it can weaken our energy levels over time. This could happen from drinking chai daily, especially since many chai recipes include black pepper, which is another strong stimulant.
Clove is a spice that has been loved and cherished through history. It is found in most kitchens and appreciated by chefs, home cooks, bakers, chai drinkers, and herbalists around the world.
Every holiday season, I make orange-clove pomanders to put around the house. Once they are dried and the new year has begun, they can be used in place of moth balls in your linen closet or clothes drawers.
Clove-orange pomanders are an easy, fun, beautiful, and sensuous holiday craft.
Orange-clove holiday pomanders
Holiday Pomanders
Ingredients:
Whole cloves
Small oranges (but not mandarines or tangerines)
Pretty ribbon
Directions:
1. Puncture holes in the skin of the orange with the pointed end of the clove.
2. Press the clove all the way in, until the rounded end of the clove is sticking out of the orange and the rest of the clove is all the way in the skin.
3. If the orange skin is too hard to easily press the cloves into, use a tip of a skewer to puncture the hole first, then stick the clove in the hole.
4. Continue to do this all around the orange. The cloves can be arranged in fun designs or they can blanket the orange.
5. Tie one or more ribbons around the orange as decoration and to hang the orange with. if you like. The ribbon can be held in place with sewing pins if needed. You may decide you want to attach the ribbon first, and then fill the cloves in around the ribbon.
6. You can leave the ribbon off, and instead, put the pomanders in a bowl or on a plate to decorate and scent your holiday table.