My Kingdom for a Cardamom Pod

Starting around the ninth century, Swedish Vikings turned their longships south and headed for warmer climes … and discovered, as they pillaged Constantinople, that they had as big a taste for cardamom as they did for Greek gold. You can omit cinnamon and even ginger from many Scandinavian baked goods, but woe to the baker who runs out of cardamom.

So I'm beginning to think that I might have travel a few thousand nautical miles myself if I want to score enough fresh cardamom pods to support my holiday baking agenda. Since running out of the spice last week, I've discovered to my horror that most of my local stores have replaced their jars of cardamom pods with "convenient" ground cardamom – which has a shelf life approximating the lifecycle of a fruit fly. Cardamom is one of the few spices that really needs to be ground immediately before using (I have a second coffee grinder that works great for this).

So it's off to the longships, I think, if I hope to be able to make the basic cardamom dough that will serve as the base for so many holiday sweet breads (or at least off to my favorite online suppliers).

Fortunately, many of the delicious cookies offered by our About.com food guides in our holiday Virtual Cookie Exchange don't call for cardamom. Check out a few of these great recipes:

Virtual Cookie Exchange-

Our guide to Greek food has a special recipe for Melomakarona which is a traditional Greek holiday cookie made with cinnamon and cloves, soaked in a honey syrup, and sprinkled with sesame seeds, walnuts, and cinnamon.

A reviewer gave these ginger-spiced vegan oatmeal and cranberry cookies 5 out of 5 stars and called them "absolutely perfect".

John Mitzewich, our guide to American food offers this recipe and says “America's favorite gourd meets America's favorite cookie, pumpkin chocolate chip cookies!”

Elaine Lemm, our guide to British food says “This irresistible Scottish Shortbread is traditionally eaten on New Years Eve, but is so good you can really eat it anytime.”