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The control over gold, silver, precious metals and recently oil has been a source of conflict and driver of economic globalization. However, other products also inspired exploration, war, conquest and ultimately the emergence of a closely integrated world trading system. One such product awaits in small bottles and packages on the shelves of supermarkets and corner markets: spices.
The quest for spice was one of the earliest drivers of globalization. Long before the voyages of European explorers, spices were globally traded products. As spices once created a global economic network in the Middle Ages, other commodities have followed a similar path. And like spice, many of these products have also faded in popularity. Consider some of the first industries listed on the Dow Jones Industrial Average - leather or rubber for instance - that have since lost their privileged place, replaced by products like Coca-Cola or oil. Spices were prized goods in the Middle Ages. The story of the quest for spices is an early model of globalization, since mirrored by other traded goods.
High prices, a limited supply and mysterious origins fueled a growing effort to discover spices and their source of cultivation. Thus, spices were a global commodity centuries before European voyages. There was a complex chain of relations, yet consumers had little knowledge of producers and vice versa.Desire for spices helped fuel European colonial empires to create political, military and commercial networks under a single power.
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In a handbook of practical wisdom written by the Florentine merchant Francesco Pegolotti in the early 14th century, some 288 spices are listed, including items like alum, used as a dye fixative. Even so, the variety of imported aromatic substances is astounding and suggests a high demand, including "long pepper" and "grains of Paradise," both peppery in taste but unrelated to black pepper, as well "dragon's blood," a dye and also a drug ingredient.
So, why were spices so highly prized in Europe in the centuries from about 1000 to 1500? One widely disseminated explanation for medieval demand for spices was that they covered the taste of spoiled meat. Spices were more expensive than meat, and fresh meat was available, as suggested by extant records of municipal ordinances prohibiting butchers from throwing unwanted animal parts and blood in the streets. Medieval purchasers consumed meat much fresher than what the average city-dweller in the developed world of today has at hand. However, refrigeration was not available, and some hot spices have been shown to serve as an anti-bacterial agent. Salting, smoking or drying meat were other means of preservation.
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More than 100 medieval cookbooks survive today. In the Libre del Coch of Master Robert, written for the king of Naples, are about 200 recipes, 154 of which call for sugar, 125 require cinnamon, 76 ginger, and 54 saffron. Spices ordered for the wedding of George "the Rich," Duke of Bavaria, and Jadwiga of Poland in 1475 included 386 pounds of pepper, 286 pounds of ginger, 257 pounds of saffron, 205 pounds of cinnamon, pounds of cloves, and 85 pounds of nutmeg. Clearly, recipes from the era called for not only large quantities of spices, but also a great variety. Spices such as cinnamon or nutmeg associated with desserts were used in meat and fish dishes. Sugar functioned as a spice during the era. Styles in cooking change, and given the modern preference for spicy dishes, we can appreciate the medieval culinary aesthethic that emphasized color, ingenuity and a high degree of processing. Far from the idea of simply grilling meat, medieval food required chopping, molding, simmering and various steps including sauces or aspic.
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Spices never had the enduring allure or power of gold and silver or the commercial potential of new products such as tobacco, indigo or sugar. But the taste for spices did continue for a while beyond the Middle Ages. As late as the 17th century, the English and the Dutch were struggling for control of the Spice Islands: Dutch New Amsterdam, or New York, was exchanged by the British for one of the Moluccan Islands where nutmeg was grown. Spices faded from European cuisine not only because of changing tastes, but also because ancient medical ideas lost currency, more exciting drugs arrived from the New World, and the prevalence of opiates rose. Nonetheless, spices' eclipse in later centuries should not obscure their role as the basis for the first large-scale global economic network and the force behind the first expansion of Europe.
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by Paul Freedman