Spices

For much of recorded human history, the category of spices has been a capacious one. Although largely relegated to the realm of food preparation by contemporary consumers, spices were at least as likely to be put to medicinal, sexual, spiritual, or ritual uses prior to the dramatic expansion in their availability after the European overseas expansion in the sixteenth century. Indeed, it is ironic, but nevertheless instructive, that spices were to diminish in consumer importance precisely as they first became affordable to more than just a small social or religious elite. For much of what made spices so desirable to our ancient and medieval ancestors, even to the point of extreme and distasteful excess by modern standards, lay in their tremendous expense and exotic, unknown origins. Yet vestiges of these older usages remain visible in modern languages, particularly in the language of the erotic. A spicy magazine is not one fit for children, and a spiced-up event is sure to be costly and extravagant. Even some of the medicinal claims made for a wide variety of spices in the past, based mostly on their aromatic qualities, are now substantiated by modern chemistry on account of their preservative and antioxidant properties.

What, then, are spices? Still a somewhat fluid category, they are generally recognized to be those aromatic and flavorful parts of plants (most often of tropical origin) that are not otherwise designated as herbs on the basis of their green color. Thus, leaves and stems are herbs whereas roots, bark, seeds, stigma, or fruit can be made into spices by drying, crushing, or other means of preservation. Just as important, spices were, in the past, distinguishable by their tremendous expense and difficulty of acquisition. For those in the European West, spices were also inextricably linked with mysterious, Eastern origins. Their aroma was widely believed to be a sign of sanctity, a healing force in its own right, but also a stimulant to sexual desire or other excesses such as pride and gluttony. As such, spices lived a complicated double life in the ancient imagination. They could cure and purify, but they could also pervert and lead astray. Not surprisingly, then, patriotic Romans and Christian intellectuals alike can be found employing spices in their ostentatious displays and ritual practices while, at the same time, condemning their consumption as dangerous to the body politic and the salvation of the soul.

In all cases, spice consumption was roundly condemned for its economic impact. It imposed ruinous expense on the individual consumer and led to the inexorable outflow of precious metals to parts east and south. Roman coins are readily apparent in Indian archeological sites dating up to the fourth or fifth century AD, only disappearing with the collapse of the Empire in the West. Promises of ending the centuries-long drain imposed by spice consumption on the public was a powerful stimulus to the royal sponsorship of Christopher Columbus, Vasco da Gama, and so many others, all of whom hoped to make the spices their own to sell. In this regard, the exorbitant cost of spices makes it nearly impossible to sustain the myth that the over-spicing of food in the Middle Ages was necessary for the preservation of meat in an age of scarcity. Meat was comparatively [Page 1370]cheap alongside the spices added to it for the sake of dignity and display.

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