Very obviously, a subject as ephemeral as this demands flexibility from reader and writer alike. The story of spice consists of a thousand unruly, aromatic skeins of history, and several years spent trying to untangle them has taught me that they refuse to be neatly woven into the straighter, clearer-cut threads that historians conventionally spin across time and space. In lieu of a narrative, I have tried to isolate such traditions as can be drawn out from the huge rattlebag of facts thrown up by such a diffuse topic, to tease out the more important continuities of spices’ past and follow them down through time. The result bears a resemblance to polyphony, albeit without the satisfying resolution.
The book begins with a brief discussion of what historians have called the Spice Race, the crowded decades at the end of the fifteenth century and the beginning of the sixteenth, when Europe poured quite extraordinary energies into the search for spice. The following chapters consider the chief hallmarks of the appetite that drove that search, under the headings of cuisine, sex, medicine, magic and distaste: palate, body and spirit. An epilogue touches on some of the reasons behind spices’ fall from grace, how it was they ceased to be so esteemed, downgraded to the mildly exotic foodstuffs they are today. These are broad horizons, with scant regard for conventional or chronological arrangement, yet I would argue that the merits of the thematic approach outweigh the drawbacks. Medieval and occasionally even modern authorities constantly looked back centuries or even millennia for precedents and justification of their own use of spice; indeed, one of my concerns is to show the extent to which these traditions have survived since remotest antiquity. This is not to suggest that a set of beliefs pertaining to spice survived intact from beginning to end. But I would argue that the spices have their traditions, reverberating with echoes and recollections; that the apparently straightforward act of eating them has been heavily burdened with historical baggage.
There are other advantages in flitting across time and space. If the narrative wanders from one time and place to another, that is exactly what spices themselves have always done, cropping up in defiance of the received wisdom, in places where, by rights, they should never have been. The drawback, of course, is that any one of these themes could warrant several books of its own, and since day two I have felt overwhelmed by the embarrassment of riches. The problem has no easy solution other than a broad brush and a carefree ruthlessness in its use. Where I have resorted to particularly sweeping statements I have tried to flag some of the complexities and nuances of the academic debate, where there is one, in the endnotes.
It might be helpful at the outset to clarify what exactly I mean by ‘spice’. The short list below is far from comprehensive, nor is it intended as a technical guide. There is, in fact, no single, satisfactory definition: ask a chemist, a botanist, a cook and a historian what is a spice and you will get very different responses – for that matter, ask different botanists and you will get different definitions. The history of the word itself, its changes and devaluation, is a theme running through the book.
The OED is, as ever, a good place to start:
One or other of various strongly flavoured or aromatic substances of vegetable origin, obtained from tropical plants, commonly used as condiments or employment for other purposes on account of their fragrance and preservative qualities.
Broadly, a spice is not a herb, understood to mean the aromatic, herbaceous, green parts of plants. Herbs are leafy, whereas spices are obtained from other parts of the plant: bark, root, flower bud, gums and resins, seed, fruit or stigma. Herbs tend to grow in temperate climates; spices in the tropics. Historically, the implication was that a spice was far less readily obtainable than a herb, and far more expensive.
Environment may also account for spices on a more fundamental level. Chemically, the qualities that make a spice a spice are its rare essential oils and oleoresins, highly volatile compounds that impart to the spices their flavour, aroma and preservative properties. Botanists classify these chemicals as secondary compounds, so called because they are secondary to the plant’s metabolism, which is to say that they play no role in photosynthesis or the uptake of nutrients. But secondary does not mean irrelevant. It is generally accepted that their raison d’être is a form of evolutionary response, the plant’s means of countering threats from parasites, bacteria, fungi or pathogens native to the plant’s tropical environment. Briefly, the chemistry of spices – what in the final analysis makes a spice a spice – is, in evolutionary terms, what quills are to the porcupine or the shell to the tortoise. In its natural state cinnamon is an elegant form of armour; the seductive aroma of the nutmeg is, to certain insects, a bundle of toxins. The elemental irony of their history is that the attractiveness of spices is (from the plant’s perspective) a form of Darwinian backfiring. What makes a spice so appealing to humans is, to other members of the animal kingdom, repulsive.*
Historically, of course, neither chemistry nor the curiosities of natural selection could be known, and there were other qualities that marked out a spice. Before the European discovery of the Americas the rare and fine spices were, practically by definition, Asian. There was no shortage of other, home-grown aromatics native to the Mediterranean basin, among them many spices now widely associated with Eastern cuisine, such as coriander, cumin and saffron. (In medieval times England was a major producer of saffron – a reminder that traffic along the spice routes went both ways.) Moreover, many substances formerly counted as spices are today classed otherwise. Early in the fourteenth century the Florentine merchant Francesco Balduccio Pegolotti wrote a business guide in which he listed no fewer than 188 spices, among them almonds, oranges, sugar and camphor. When Lady Capulet calls for spices Juliet’s nurse takes her to mean dates and quinces. Generally, however, the spices were alike in being small, long-lasting, high-value and hard to acquire. Above all, the word conveyed a sense of their uniqueness; there was no substitute. To say a spice was special was tautological; indeed the words have a common root. And as a sense of their exceptionalism was embedded in their name so it was integral to their appeal.
By any measure the most exceptional of the spices, and far and away the most historically significant, is pepper. The spice is the fruit of Piper nigrum, a perennial climbing vine native to India’s Malabar Coast. Its tendrils bear clusters of peppercorns on dense, slender spikes, turning a yellowish-red at maturity, like redcurrants. On this one plant grow the three true peppers: black, white and green. Black pepper, the most popular variety, is picked while still unripe, briefly immersed in boiling water, then left to dry in the sun. Within a few days the skin shrivels and blackens, giving the spice its distinctive wrinkly appearance. White pepper is the same fruit left longer on the vine. After harvest the outer husk is softened by soaking, left to dry and rubbed off in water or by mechanical action. Green or pickled peppercorns are picked while still unripe, like black pepper, then immediately soaked in brine.
Pepper has several lookalikes, the cause of much confusion, which all belong to different species. Melegueta pepper was widely used in medieval times, but is now confined to speciality shops, a fate shared by long pepper. (The latter is doubly confusing for sharing an Indian origin with black pepper, whereas Melegueta pepper is native to Africa.) The attractive pink peppercorns commonly sold in combination with the other peppers are entirely unrelated – the plant, native to South America, is in fact mildly toxic, recommended more by its appearance than its taste.
The clove, on the other hand, is unmistakable. The spice is the dried, unripe flower bud of Syzygium aromaticum,*