Description
Women from Thekkady in Kerala sort and clean cardamom pods by hand. They use traditional, flat wicker baskets to ‘winnow’ the cardamom or sort it by hand according to size and colour. Green cardamom (Elettaria cardamomum) is regarded as the ‘queen of spices’ and is grown in the cooler mountainous regions of southern India, known as the Cardamom Hills. Harvesting and subsequent cleaning are carried out almost entirely by hand, making cardamom one of the world’s most expensive spices after saffron and vanilla. – 1990
