Welcome to the summary page for FabulousFusionFood's Cook's Guide entry for Cloves along with all the recipes employing Cloves presented on this site, with 970 recipes in total.

This is a continuation of an entire series of pages that will, I hope, allow my visitors to better navigate this site. As well as displaying recipes by name, country and region of origin I am now planning a whole series of pages where recipes can be located by meal type and main ingredient. This page gives a listing of all the Cloves recipes added to this site.

These recipes, all contain Cloves as a major wild food ingredient.

Cloves (Syzygium aromaticum, syn Eugenia aromaticum or Eugenia caryophyllata) It is native to Indonesia and used as a spice in cuisine all over the world. The name derives from French clou, a nail, as the buds vaguely resemble small irregular nails in shape. Cloves are harvested primarily in Indonesia (Banda Islands, known as the "Spice Islands") and Madagascar; it is also grown in Zanzibar, India, and Sri Lanka. The spice itself represents the dried flower buds of a tree in the family Myrtaceae.



The clove tree is an evergreen that grows to a maximum height of 20m and it bears crimson flowers in numerous groups of terminal clusters. The flower buds are at first of a pale color and gradually become green, after which they develop into a bright red, when they are ready for collecting. Cloves are harvested when 1.5-2 cm long, and consist of a long calyx, terminating in four spreading sepals, and four unopened petals which form a small ball in the centre. The name clove itself derives from French clou, a nail, as the buds resemble hand-forged Medieval nails.



The clove is used extensively in cooking, both for sweet and savory dishes. Cloves are often studded in pork or in oranges to create mulled wine/beer/mead/cider. The spice is used widely throughout Europe and Asia and is utilized as a material for incense in China and Japan. Oil of cloves is widely used to treat toothache in dental emergencies. Cloves are also used to freshen the breath. The Clove is one of the classical spices of the ancient world and the secret of clove production was not discovered until 1512 by Portuguese navigators.