Spices Have Made, and Unmade, Empires

[seibelj]

> In the West, we’re prone to taking what isn’t ours and acting as if we discovered it, conveniently forgetting its history and context.

Can any culture claim a flavor as “theirs” and get angry at other cultures for tasting it? Such throwaway comments have been commonplace in the NYT and I don’t understand their purpose. The whole world likes good flavor, let’s not gatekeep it, I’d rather we unite the world through food than make it yet another divisive force.

[mapcars]

How easily you equalize "get angry" with creating colonies, destroy and rule other countries for hundreds of years. This is exactly an example of "conveniently forgetting its history and context".

[simonsarris]

Great examples.

Surprised it overlooks salt, especially as it mentions "Spices were among the first engines of globalization". The salt mines in the Salzburg ("Salt Fortress" or "Salt Castle"!!) were operating 7000 years ago and have been a considerable source of the areas riches, starting with the Celtic population trading to Greeks and Romans.

Salt played a role in both the American and the French revolutions:

https://www.ncdcr.gov/blog/2013/04/24/salt-works-established...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabelle#French_Revolution

[hammock]

I recently visited Wielikzca outside Krakow (look up photos, it's ridiculous). Poland's prosperity is largely owed to salt as well.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wieliczka_Salt_Mine

[hinkley]

And Indian independence.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salt_March

[abawany]

So much so that there appears to be persistent belief that the word "salary" is derived from "sel" (salt): http://kiwihellenist.blogspot.com/2017/01/salt-and-salary.ht... .

[spocklivelong]

I'm south indian, and I routinely cook with at least 8 - 10 spices. Most common are the whole garam masala (bay leaf, cinnamon, cloves, cardamom, black pepper, cumin, coriander seeds, mustard and turmeric)

[yboris]

The Spice Melange ...

While cocaine, opium, and others are considered "drugs" - they are in a sensible sense spices too.

[virtuous_signal]

I never could get into history in school, but I love the idea of looking at history through the lens of one particular item and find it more interesting. I know of (https://www.amazon.com/Debt-Updated-Expanded-First-Years/dp/...). Any others that people here would recommend?

[wwsculley]

You would love this book: At Home by Bill Bryson (https://www.amazon.com/At-Home-Short-History-Private/dp/0767...)

It explores history through the lens of everyday objects in the home (even fixtures like windows, and spaces like your foyer)

A little slow to start, but then it never stops entertaining

[carrozo]

My favourite of this genre -

Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0099268701/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_...

[minimuffins]

https://amazon.com/dp/0140092331

Sidney Mintz, Sweetness and Power

[pseudolus]

"A Splendid Exchange: How Trade Shaped the World" by William Bernstein provides a sweeping overview of world trade - including spices [0].

[0] https://www.amazon.com/Splendid-Exchange-Trade-Shaped-World/...

[rstupek]

This was an interesting read

https://www.amazon.com/Salt-World-History-Mark-Kurlansky/dp/...

[jayalpha]

This is in my opinion the best book about modern history. You can easily catch up with stuff you missed:

https://www.amazon.de/Rise-Fall-Great-Powers/dp/0679720197

This book was written in 1989 and was already skeptical about the stability of the soviet union and also thought what might happen to Ukraine if the the USSR disintegrates (attracted to EU/EC).

[munificent]

You would love "A History of the World in Six Glasses".

[tim333]

While not exactly one item, Sapiens looks at history from the perspective of human shared fictions and is a good read https://www.amazon.com/product-reviews/B00ICN066A

[groktor]

you should read some of Giles Milton's books: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29386.Nathaniel_s_Nutmeg and https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/411475.White_Gold are good ones to start with

[scarejunba]

It's funny. Using today's language to judge that time, one might say: "I can't believe the greatest minds of our generation are focusing on making some fat man's food taste nicer".

[Jamwinner]

Plenty of tech companies add no more value and are celebrted. Its all the persuit of wealth.

[lizardking]

What if I told you the fat man was rich?

[HeWhoLurksLate]

That reminds me of the fact that the Romans used lead as a sweetener in their water, which probably didn't help them out much, either...

[mc32]

Do you mean they did that actively (using lead as an added sweetener)or was it passively (by proxy though the vessels they used)?

[rtkwe]

I'm always a little shocked when I remember how rare spices used to be for much of the world. Even salt was a valuable commodity for an extremely long time.

[ip26]

I've been going the other way recently. How could it have been so tough to flavor dishes? Honey & frankincense might have been hard to come by, but oregano, basil, cilantro/coriander, cumin, parsley, anise, fennel, rosemary, tarragon, dill, chives, mint, and thyme (just off the top of my head) were all available in southern Europe and can mostly be grown in your kitchen.

The spice trade brought cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, cardamom, ginger, black pepper, and turmeric.

[bart_spoon]

Similarly (and unsurprisingly, given that many are made from spices), pigments. I recently read "The Secret Lives of Color" by Kasia St. Clair, and its pretty remarkable what has been required to produce various pigments throughout history, and the costs associated with doing so.

[umvi]

I'm guessing salt was only valuable for land-locked countries. Any country with a sea could just add some sea water to their cooking to get salt

[quinndupont]

Is nobody going to mention how beautifully it was written? Surprising erudition and style.

[mtarnovan]

As anyone who ever played Civilization very well knows :-)

[Razengan]

We all play civilization.

[haecceity]

Looks like a good argument that production drives history.

[UI_at_80x24]

Rephrased:

Humanities desire to alter the things we eat has changed the face of the planet and affected billions of lives.

[backtobecks]

Spies also :)

[starpilot]

When you eat a dorito you are tasting more spices than the average medieval peasant consumed in a lifetime.

[HeXetic]

> But Americans do [use turmeric] having suddenly and belatedly awakened to turmeric’s health benefits, some 3,000 years after they were first set down in the Atharva Veda, one of Hinduism’s foundational sacred texts.

And there goes my interest in reading the rest of the article. Why continue to read what is supposedly a history piece if it opens with pseudoscience? How am I supposed to trust that it's not pseudohistory as well?

cf. https://www.cmaj.ca/content/190/43/E1270

[dang]

Please don't take HN threads on generic flamewar tangents. They're boring, and we want interesting.

To get interesting, focus on what tickles curiosity rather than what triggers rage.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

[harshalizee]

That makes no sense. I understand not wanting to take the article at face value, but the link provided doesn't exactly provide any details of their study either.

> How am I supposed to trust that it's not pseudohistory as well?

Because this part of the article is actually verifiable history. The Atharva Veda exists and available to grok. The science part is up for debate. You can still read an article for its other merits

[kevinqiu1]

I think that statement is meant to set the historical context rather than promote pseudoscience...

Later in the article:

>even as the health benefits of curcumin remain unproven beyond a few preliminary clinical trials that suggest its potential as an anti-inflammatory and an antioxidant

[GordonS]

I really don't get what you are complaining about here; you appear to take issue with a reference to an ancient Indian text - a verifiable fact that the text exists.

Beyond that, there is a wealth of good evidence about curcumin, the main curcuminoid in turmeric - it has been shown that curcumin has antiinflammatory effects and can reduce blood glucose levels.

[cscurmudgeon]

How is that pseudo-history? The history part is undisputed.

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/how-turmeric-became-a-...

[paggle]

I think the article is a great example of what happens when American attitudes get applied to Eastern traditions. Turmeric with black pepper in milk has long been a traditional "comfort drink" in India. Does it work? I think it does, but not in the sense that there is a specific chemical that is causing a specific response that can cure something like aortic inflammation. The concept of a "health benefit" in Indian families is "drink this and rest it will make you feel good and get healthy soon." The American approach, described in the article, is to find that Kerala turmeric has 6% curcumin compared to Tamil Nadu's 3%, and wow Nicaragua is at 7.9% so let's get a bunch of that and have it every day and it will control our aortic inflammation! and that's just too much to ask of turmeric.

[trianglem]

Just because a homeopathy is a charlatan field doesn’t mean all of it is pseudoscience. Ayurveda has some scientifically validated remedies. If you remember, yoga used to be considered a sham until we started discovering a lot of what was claimed turned out to be true.

[madhadron]

Thank you for getting the obligatory Dune reference in this thread out of the way.

[mapcars]

I really wonder how come Europeans are so violent?