Berries

In culinary terms, the small fruits borne on bushes and low plants (rather than trees) — most native to northern woodlands. As a group, berries are the most fragile, perishable, and phenolic-rich fruits in the kitchen. Most are non-climacteric or nearly so, meaning quality is essentially fixed at harvest. Their intense colors come from anthocyanin pigments, and their concentrated flavors — far more intense in wild forms — make them both the most rewarding and most time-sensitive fresh fruits to work with.

Warm Spices

The warm spices — cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, mace, and allspice — are defined by their rich phenolic compounds that produce sweet, penetrating, warming sensations. All come from tropical trees, all were enormously important in the medieval spice trade, and all share the property that their flavors persist through cooking (unlike volatile terpene-dominated herbs). Cloves hold the record for aroma concentration among all spices: ~17% volatile chemicals by weight.

Cinnamon and cassia

Dried inner bark of tropical Cinnamomum genus trees (laurel family relatives). When peeled from new growth, the inner bark curls into familiar quills or sticks.