But put an extra condiment into your dish, and it will poison you.

Cinnamon is principally employed in cookery as a condiment and flavouring material, being largely used in the preparation of some kinds of chocolate and liqueurs.

Of him Edward Eggleston says: "A strange mixture of rashness, pious zeal, genial manners, hot temper, and harsh bigotry, his extravagances supply the condiment of humour to a very serious history - it is perhaps the principal debt posterity owes him."

Laristan is famous for the condiment called mahiabeh (fish-jelly), a compound of pounded small sprat-like fish, salt, mustard, nutmeg, cloves and other spices, used as a relish with nearly all foods.

The economic importance of salt is further indicated by the almost universal prevalence in ancient and medieval times, and indeed in most countries down to the present day, of salt taxes or of government monopolies, which have not often been directed, as they were in ancient Rome, to enable every one to procure so necessary a condiment at a moderate price.