Exporters of Raw Cashew Nuts from Madagascar

  In the 18th century, Holland had such a fiercely guarded monopoly on the clove trade that the government made growing or selling cloves outside its colony of Amboina, in Indonesia, a crime punishable by death. The Chinese were said to use them as far back as 226 BC. Apparently they chewed the flowerettes prior to having an audience with the Emperor so that their breath would not smell bad.

Cardamom is used to break up kidney stones and gallstones, and was reportedly used as an antidote for both snake and scorpion venom. Guatemala is the largest producer of cardamom in the world with an average yield of between 25 thousand to 29 thousand metric tons annually.

Vanilla is the only edible fruit of the orchid family, the largest family of flowering plants in the world

The early term for "merchant" in Austronesian is *dagang (Dempwolff) and this word is very similar to one of the terms for "ocean."

Columbus' far-fetched proposal to reach the East Indies by sailing westward received the support of the Spanish crown, which saw in it a promise, however remote, of gaining the upper hand over rival powers in the contest for the lucrative spice trade with Asia

The Cashew Nut is actually a seed and not a "nut", in the botanical sense.  The seed is surrounded by a double shell containing an allergenic phenolic resin, anacardic acid, a potent skin irritant chemically related to the more well known allergenic oil urushiol which is also a toxin found in the related poison ivy. Properly roasting cashews destroys the toxin, but it must be done outdoors as the smoke (not unlike that from burning poison ivy) contains urushiol droplets which can cause severe, sometimes life-threatening, reactions by irritating the lungs.

While native to Brazil, the Portuguese took the cashew plant to Goa, India, between the years of 1560 and 1565. From there it spread throughout Southeast Asia and eventually Africa.