ABSTRACT
There is no clear boundary between spices, herbs, and condiments. Is black pepper a spice or a condiment? Is coriander a spice, because the fruits are used as such, or a herb, because the leaves are used like parsley? In The Book of Spices, Rosengarten suggests that spices are primarily tropical and herbs primarily temperate, but caraway is a temperate spice, and tropical species of Tagetes and Eryngium are used as herbs in Latin America. The decision about which species to include in this chapter and which to exclude has thus inevitably been somewhat arbitrary.
