THE SPICES OF FIJI
From the time humans first arrived in Fiji, spice plants along with salt must certainly have been used to enhance the taste and flavour of the food they ate. Early Fijians, no doubt, used plants like chilli and ginger. Much later, as Fiji's population grew to include Indians, Chinese and Europeans, a vast new variety of spices became part of Fiji's cuisine.

Some spice plants already existed in Fiji such as species of nutmeg, pepper and ginger (turmeric). Today, a comprehensive assortment of commercial varieties are all growing well in Fiji's ideal climate. It is not unusual to see cinnamon and clove trees growing ornamentally in compounds throughout Fiji's larger islands.

Growing spices commercially is a relatively new emerging industry in Fiji. However, now, many villages in Taveuni, Kadavu, Lomaiviti, etc especially grow vanilla to supply Fiji's chief plantation and exporter - located at Wainadoi, which is 22km west of Suva. This plantation grows vanilla, pepper, nutmegs, cinnamon, cardamoms, cloves, turmeric and ginger commercially.

The Wainadoi plantation is open to visitors and is worth the trip to see the spices that we use daily actually growing. With Fiji's ideal climate, the potential to become a major producer of these amazing plant products is now being realised.

This stamp issue reflects just a few of the more important spices that we all take for granted in our kitchens and markets. Today we move away from using synthetic products as demand and interest increases for authentic organically grown spices.

Vanilla: Vanilla fragrans, Orchidaceae.
Native to Mexico, vanilla is now cultivated in Madagascar, Reunion, Indonesia, Uganda and Tonga, as well as Fiji. Tahiti cultivates a different species. Flowers come in clusters, and as each flower blooms, it must be pollinated that morning or it will fall in disuse. Pollination in all cases is done very swiftly by hand over four months of the year, usually September through December and the vanilla "beans" ripen some nine months later. Sun-curing and "sweating", wrapped in blankets, bring out the bouquet and flavour, a process of several months. Almost all the crop is sold in Fiji's own retail packets, in "added-value" form to discriminating buyers. The very best beans are saved for making organic vanilla liquid extract that has achieved a world reputation. Consumers are being converted away from using the synthetic chemical extract that is made from coal-tar products. As a member of the orchid family, vanilla was a natural for Fiji, which already has some 23 species of wild orchids in its native flora.

Nutmeg: Myristica fragrans, Myristicaceae
Nutmeg is a natural for Fiji because there are already growing in the bush three species closely related to the commercial species. It thrives in our insular maritime climate where there is no pronounced dry season. Other areas of the world that specialise in nutmegs are Grenada and Indonesia. This is a dioecious tree, with male and female trees separate, and a few hermaphrodites. Slow growing, the seedlings take six years to reveal their gender. Most of the males are cut out, because only one male tree is needed for ten females. Trees will grow to 20 metres but the drupes are easy to harvest, falling when ripe, with the husk (pericarp) splitting open by itself. The nut (testa) is sun dried before tapping lightly to open out the kernel that is the main product. Around the shell of the nut is a brilliant red, fleshy aril, a separate but similar tasting spice called mace. Sun-dried, the aril will turn yellowish or orange-coloured. The flowers are fragrant and they secrete a sweet nectar. Pollination is effected naturally, by insects.

Pepper: Piper nigrum, Piperaceae.
True pepper is Piper nigrum ("Black pepper") a climbing vine not to be confused with cayenne, chilli, red, green or sweet peppers belonging to the Capsicum genus. Christopher Columbus got confused reaching the West Indies, thinking he had reached India, and found real pepper. Our pepper is real pepper of the pepper family, related to the pepper leaf that is chewed with the betel nut, Piper betle, and to kava, Piper methysticum, the beverage plant of the South Sea islands. It is native to the Western Ghats in India, but is now widely cultivated in the wet rain-forest tropics of India, Indonesia, Brasil, as well as Hainan, China. Curiously, in India, only black pepper is used, while white pepper is virtually unknown. Chinese people use only white pepper, and never the black. It is the same plant. Black pepper is sun-cured from clusters of the mature green berries. White pepper comes from the very ripe berries after the soft red or yellow skin has been rubbed off.
The pepper vine is grown supported by the trunks of tree fern that also supply food to the clinging clasper roots. Clusters of peppercorns are harvested after three years from planting the cuttings. Pollination is by wind and rain. The only labour is in pruning back vegetative shoots that yield no fruit, and in the harvest. It is an easy crop to grow and Fiji has built a reputation for world-class pepper, certified organic, with its own exquisite bouquet.

Cinnamon: Cinnamomum verum, Lauraceae.
Fiji has a scattering of native cinnamons that are used by villagers to perfume the fragrant coconut oil used for their body massage. Their bark is similar to the commercial Cinnamomum verun but not as sweet, and cannot be sold as food. Wainadoi has forests of the naturalised true cinnamon and supplies bakeries and health-food stores overseas and in Fiji. The small trees are chopped out every two or three years, and bark cleaned and removed from the branches. The branches grow back naturally without any prompting. Fiji originated the idea of reducing the bark to fine powder and shipping fresh from the plantation. Cinnamon bark is cut, ground on a stone-mill, and packed "Fiji Fresh", delivered by courier direct to the buyer. Here the spices never know what a warehouse looks like.