Grains of Paradise are the new pepper!

During my work with Lene and Nadins book launch I had the pleasure of visiting the spices room at Arcus. One of the spices I came away with was grains of paradise.
The plant they come from is aframomum melegueta and is a member of the ginger family. The plant has purple trumpet like flowers that develop into pods containing small reddish brown seeds. Once upon a time these were imported to europe from Africa to Europeand used as a fashionale substitute for black pepper.
Today the grains of paradise are largely unknown except for in north and west Africa.
Nowadays the use of grains of paradise in the rest of the world is in some beers as Samuel Adams, some gins and our very own akevitt!
There seems to be a budding revival for the use of the corns and I am happy to promote them as I think they have an amazing smell and taste that is great to use as a substitute for pepper and even in cakes and pies.
I have also heard rumours that they help relieve indigestion and arthritis!!!