Colorful spice trade history described as forerunner of today's globalization
India's Defense Research Laboratory has published a list of its completed humanitarian projects, such as "Removal of Arsenic From water." It concludes with the proud item: "Identified World's Hottest Chili."
"What they plan to do with it is, I'm sure, top secret," comments food historian Michael Krondl at the end of "The Taste of Conquest," his book on the history of the spice trade. "Suffice it to say, it should probably be banned from hand luggage everywhere."
Its use in pepper spray has been suggested. So have eye protection and a breath mask for anyone grinding it.
Though Krondl sees the spread of spices in western Europe centuries ago as the origin of 21st-century globalization, he notes that the international market goes further back into ancient history. When Roman Emperor Nero murdered his wife, Poppaea, he used a year's supply of cinnamon to bury her. Joseph's brothers sold him to traders carrying what the King James Bible calls "spicery" from Jordan to Egypt. It doesn't say which spices, but archaeologists have found peppercorns stuffed up the nose of a Pharaoh's mummy.
The book carries its main story back only a thousand years to the Crusaders. Affluent nobles from western Europe got a taste for highly spiced food when they invaded the Middle East. It argues against the idea that spices were wanted in the West to preserve food, because the rich could afford to eat fresh meat and use spices; the poor could not.
Read entire article at AP
"What they plan to do with it is, I'm sure, top secret," comments food historian Michael Krondl at the end of "The Taste of Conquest," his book on the history of the spice trade. "Suffice it to say, it should probably be banned from hand luggage everywhere."
Its use in pepper spray has been suggested. So have eye protection and a breath mask for anyone grinding it.
Though Krondl sees the spread of spices in western Europe centuries ago as the origin of 21st-century globalization, he notes that the international market goes further back into ancient history. When Roman Emperor Nero murdered his wife, Poppaea, he used a year's supply of cinnamon to bury her. Joseph's brothers sold him to traders carrying what the King James Bible calls "spicery" from Jordan to Egypt. It doesn't say which spices, but archaeologists have found peppercorns stuffed up the nose of a Pharaoh's mummy.
The book carries its main story back only a thousand years to the Crusaders. Affluent nobles from western Europe got a taste for highly spiced food when they invaded the Middle East. It argues against the idea that spices were wanted in the West to preserve food, because the rich could afford to eat fresh meat and use spices; the poor could not.