History of Spices
The word “spice” derives from Latin “species” or ‘special waves and refers to an item of special value as opposed to ordinary items.
The exchange of spices and herbs, as well as many other foods and food production techniques via the silk road has left a legacy of shared gastronomic heritage enjoyed all over the world. These have incorporated not just ingredients but bodies of knowledge or philosophies concerning balanced healthy gastronomy such as the idea of ‘hot and cold” foods in both China and Iranian Plateau or the principles of Ayurveda from Indian subcontinent.
Spices and herbs can be used in cooking, religions, rituals or medication.
About 5000 years ago, the emperor Shen Nung in China assembled the first documentation on herbs. There are documents that tells us about how Chinese courtiers in the 3rd century B.C used to carry cloves in their mouth so their breath was sweet when addressing the emperor. To keep the food fresh and prevent scurvy, they used to carry ginger plants on long sea voyages between China and Southeast Asia during the 5th century.
Sumerians in the Fertile Crescent, handed down their testimony of hundreds of plants on clay tablets about 3000-2000 B.C. It’s more of a medical literature that mention various aromatic plants such as thyme, cardamom, cumin etc.
Thanks to the fertile soil of the Tigris and Euphrates Valleys, Mesopotamians were growing bay, thyme, coriander, cardamom, turmeric, garlic, dill, anise, cumin and export them through the ancient spice road. The Fertile Crescent was the great bridge between the Mediterranean basin and the Orient with a flourishing trade in agricultural plants, spices and herbs.
There’s a mural in an ancient palace in Crete showing primitives picking up saffron that shows they knew about spices even before the invention of hieroglyph (3000 B.C).
Papyri from Ancient Egypt in 1555 B.C classified coriander, fennel, juniper, cumin, garlic and thyme as healthy spices. They were not only used in food, but also in cosmetics, perfumery, and medicines. Egyptians considered spices to be the fragrance of the gods, and believed that placing spices next to the bodies of the dead would make their journey to the other world easier, as it would attract the unseen help of the gods. However, today it has been proven that most spices slow down the process of decaying corpses due to their antiseptic properties. Being part of the Silk Road, Egyptians were also familiar with incense and aromatic plants. Oils and essences were playing an essential part in their lives and in their attempt to conquer death through the process of embalming.
In Persia, onions and garlic were popular by the 6th century. There are records of a wholesale purchase of 395,000 bunches of garlic by King Cyrus. Persians were also famous for the essential oils that they used to make from saffron, lilies, roses and coriander.
As spice trades revived during the 8th century, the Arabs introduced saffron (zafaran: yellow) to the Mediterranean. It reached Spain by the 9th century as they were sailing from ports in Asia Minor.
As time goes by, they refined chemical science and techniques The Persian Avicenna (10th century) talks about herbal medicines and ways of distillation of essential oils in his encyclopaedia of medicine called ‘The canon of medicine’.
Spices and manufactured goods were traveling all the way from Orient to Europe and the first to profit was Venice. Venetian ships were carrying spices to help sparse of medieval kitchens. So dinner tables of wealthy was luxurious with spices like ginger, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg and pepper. Pepper was regarded as black gold in the Mediterranean and used as currency in Roman times.
Spices became more and more a symbol of status and more expensive.
Cinnamon was coming from trees in the wild by native Tamils and Singhalese in Ceylon. They traded first with Arabs and from there later to Portuguese and Dutch traders.
In medieval times, spices were precious because of their medical usage and not their flavour in food. In 1603, one of the miracle cures for the plague was considered Indian nutmeg.
Mexico was the only country to grow vanilla until 1841, when Edmond Albius, a 12-year-old slave boy on the island of Réunion in the Indian Ocean, figured out how to hand-pollinate the vanilla blooms using a stick and a flip of the thumb.
With the onset of industrial revolution, use of aromatic plants decreased in cities, but herbs and spices continue to play an important role in country kitchens. During the two world Wars, collection of wild plants and herbs play a vital role to supplement the sparse diet to provide the necessary vitamin content for survival.
Spices and herbs have so much to offer on so many levels. Today, we use spices and herbs every day in cooking, aromatherapy, health and medication. We have easy access to them around the world. We can even grow them at home no matter the climate we live in. Researchers continue to find beneficial chemical compounds in them and chefs continue to create tasty recipes with them. Without spices life is just too bland!