Spice: The History of A Temptation combines two things I love: history and spices. I had no idea that reading about the latter could be an exercise in the former. Columbus’ voyage, the ensuing Portugese-Spanish rivalry for the spice islands, and back to the impact of spice trade for the Egyptian and Roman empires. It’s all in there and it is fascinating. All the while the reader embarks on a tour of how spice use in cuisine, as an aphrodisiac, and for religious purposes.

What exactly are “spices”? Turner spends some time spent addressing this question, but inevitably finds a definition elusive. Distinguishing between spices and herbs is historically blurred depending on the region and time. Nevertheless, Turner focuses on the five most significant spices for world and culinary history: peppercorns, cinnamon, nutmeg, mace, and clove.

Turner paints a complete picture of spices as once revered and glorified items, consuming a surprisingly high percentage of people’s income, and to their fall from grace in the last two centuries as their relative importance has declined. I knew spices were highly coveted in past times, but I had no idea they reached such extremes in value (we’re talking serious percentages of people’s spending). Coming mostly from distant Asia or Africa, spices’ mysterious origins were beyond medieval Europe’s comprehension. Spices were literally believed to be from paradise (Eden).

Around 0 BC when Rome held Egypt and had direct access to the Red Sea, direct trade with India flourished (presenting balance of trade issues not unlike today) and the empire bought massive quantities of spices directly. But as the barbarians eroded Rome’s power and direct routes were lost, spices reverted back to being very mystical, of unknown origins.

“Since all reports of Paradise and spices alike arrived secondhand, the medieval imagination was free to run riot.” (48)

It’s all the more interesting that The Travels of Marco Polo was treated with such suspicion, yet fantastical stories about Asia were commonplace. I guess Polo’s accounts really were “stranger than fiction”.

With the fall of the Roman empire, Western cookery suffered, as spices went from being fairly commonplace, to becoming much more expensive. The rise of Islam also coincided with the end of direct West-East trade, as Muslims seized North African and Middle Eastern trade routes.

“Where there were spices there were Muslims.” (91)

It fell to European nobility to carry on the Roman spice traditions. Spice trade returned to Western Europe on a more solid basis toward the end of the 9th century as wealth began to increase.

Turner continues, chronicling the quest of the West to find the paradise(s) of spices. Where were spices actually being cultivated? The short answer: India (peppercorns), Sri Lanka (cinnamon), and the Moluccas islands of Indonesia (clove, mace, nutmeg). The long answer leads into the first major part of the book which captured my interest immensely. The quest for the origin of Eastern spices drove European discovery of new lands. I could go on and on about the mention of spices in Columbus’ voyages, their influence on the feud between the Spanish and Portuguese, and the later arrival of the Dutch and English on the scene.

I learned a lot from the narrative around the spice-driven exploration of the world, and I was left wanting more, but it was just as interesting to move on to how spices were actually used. An elementary understanding of the use of spices in medieval cuisine tends to emphasize their use as a masking of rotting or spoiled food. Turner dispels this as largely a myth, though they did use salted meats throughout the winter. He suggests there is no reason to believe they wouldn’t have had access to fresh meat most of the year. Most of the population was rural and in urban markets selling bad meat was an offense worthy of the death penalty.

Turner spends considerable time looking at the intersection of religion and spices, of which much was less interesting to me. Note though that religious days of fasting (which in medieval Europe were extensive: for example, at one point in the 13th century Catholics had around 200 days of fasting in the year) forced cooks to use spices for variety. (Note: religious fasting doesn’t mean eating nothing: in Christian context it usually means not eating red meats). The limited varieties of fish and vegetables consumed during Lent and other fasting periods meant an emphasis on spice and sauces. Inland peoples had it particularly hard, relying almost exclusively on salted fish. Turner’s excerpts from medieval cookbooks and the like give me the unexpected realization that sauce accompaniments were the norm with medieval meals. The most common, some sort of “pepper sauce”.

“The monastic kitchen shows every sign of having succumbed to one of the constants of culinary history: the effort, on slender resources, of turning a fast into a feast.” (277)

The alluring smell of spices also have religious significance, thought to of course be the scents of heavens. Keep in mind that “corrupt air” was blamed for many a sweeping sickness that wiped out thousands at a time.

“..odors, airs, and vapors occupied a central place in ancient and medieval thought, and continued to do so until the 19th century.” (175)

Although religion played its role in promoting spice usage, its adherents also spent considerable effort to arguing against it. Christians often claimed that spices represented an indulgent squandering of resources as they had no nutritional value. Luxury is, after all, one of the seven deadly sins.

Among the most interesting lessons from the book was that food and health were inseparable in medieval times.

“..the concern of the medieval food writer was as much in maintaining or restoring health as with creating an aesthetic effect. Cooking was considered more a medical science than an art.” (120)

Books on food were largely focused on health effects. “Cooking was dietetics.” Quoted from a medieval source: “..a good cook is half a physician, for the chief physic doth come from the kitchen.” Spices were of the utmost importance derived from their believed capacity to heal as much as delight.

Medieval thinking centered around humoral theory, which is similar to the four temperaments in Ayurvedic medicine: wet or dry; hot or cold. Any food item can be classified along these lines, and meals should be balanced overall. For example, wildfowl, warm and dry (they fly around in dry hot air), was commonly served with a pea puree, which was considered cold and moist. Fruit, considered wet and cold, was therefore often avoided. Generally spices had a dry, warming effect. According to humoral theory, sickness occurred when humors were out of balance. In addition, every person had their own humoral predisposition. A hot person needed to eat colder foods. The aging process was seen as a progressive diminution of “inner heat”- a gradual cooling down and drying out. Old age could be delayed by offsetting the diet with warming spices.

Ironically, the wealthiest people seemed to assume that expensive meant healthy. They viewed garlic and locally grown herbs as a “poor man’s theriac” and left them out entirely from their diets. The literature suggests having expensive metals like gold at the dinner table (and probably in some cases mixed in with food) was prioritized.

“..the irony is that in terms of medical efficacy the poor were not much worse off, if at all, then the rich: the peasant was probably better served by his garlic and herbs than a monarch treated with costly theriacs of exotic spices and powdered gemstones.” (174)

The spice age ended once the mysterious lands of origin were discovered (and conquered) by Western powers. Spices became more commonplace as prices plummeted, and other goods such as rubber, tea, and textiles supplanted spices as the choice of the profiteer. Without the prodigious energy being spent to acquire them, spices began to feature less prominently in cuisine. Simultaneously, the advent of new world crops such as tomatoes, potatoes, and peppers created new possibilities for cooks and lessened reliance on spices. Cravings for tobacco, tea, coffee, and sugar swept the world.

The age when imperialism met the spice lands coincided with the rise of nationalism and mercantilism. With government emphasis on self-sufficiency, cookbooks started to feature national cuisines using locally produced foods.

“..age of emergent nation-state was also the age of national cuisines, none of which had much room for spice. Nowhere was the new trend more fully or more successfully expressed than in Italy, both regionally and nationally, where the delight in few, simpler, and fresher tastes remains the quintessence and genius of Italian cooking.” (302)

Many spices and foods “have come to be associated more with the cuisine of the countries that have adopted them than with the lands of their origin.” Gives you a truly interesting perspective on regional foods.

There is much more in this book than I’ve covered. As Turner drifts in to the use of spices on dead people and for libido, I found myself a bit disinterested and wanting more links to a culinary context. That said, these are a legitimate, necessary part of the book’s broad scope. I did at times get the impression that the author threw in every relevant anecdote and quote he came across in his research, rather than use discretion for a more readable work. But no where is it poorly written, and the direct references to real literature of the times make for an authentic read.

Here are some interesting tidbits about each of the five major spices:

Cinnamon
- “Ceylon” cinnamon is from Sri Lanka (known as Ceylon pre-1972) and is the original, authentic cinnamon; the less expensive “Cassia” cinnamon is what you’ll find in most shops these days, if not otherwise stated (probably from China or Vietnam)
- Ceylon has a lighter (superior IMO) taste; Cassia is darker and more pungent
- A medieval consumer would be able to distinguish between the two
- Ceylon cinnamon was one of the last spices to be grown outside of its original location
- Along with nutmeg, rumored to be among the “secret” ingredients of Coca-Cola

Clove, Nutmeg, Mace
- despite being available throughout Europe, they were grown exclusively in a few dozen islands (Moluccas) up until modern times
- Indonesia is now a net importer of cloves
- Mace and nutmeg are from the same seed of the same tree (mace is the outer layer on the seed, and has a milder flavor)
- The story of how the Dutch controlled nutmeg and clove production in such a small geographic area is amazing (and brutal), and includes the effort by the French Poivre to steal the seedlings to plant elsewhere (including the Seychelles)
- In practically every language, East and West, the name for clove means “nail” (reference to its shape)

Peppercorns
- So commonly used in the Roman empire that many soldiers would have them on hand when traveling (found on soldier’s bodies by archaeologists)
- Fell from grace as the as the most coveted spice in the world, when new world pepper varieties, the American chili in particular, spread rapidly as the only possible replacement for peppercorns (most Europeans at first assumed the American peppers were Asian in origin)

Additional Reading
The Spice Of Life – Scott’s article from the Performance Menu on the health benefits of various herbs and spices

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