Imagine that you are in a room full of people and you ask, “Have you ever used spices in your cooking?” I’ll bet the answer among the crowd will be, “YES!!” Spices primarily have a place in the kitchen today, but did you know that their history goes way beyond just cooking? As you continue reading, you’ll find out the major impact spices had on history all over the world.
Spices were used in history in many ways. First, spices were used to help cover up the taste of spoiled meat. According to Paul Freedman in the article, “Spices: How the Search for Flavors Influenced Our World,” spice trade occurred in a time when refrigeration did not yet exist, and so spices were thought to keep the bacteria off of fresh meat. Second, spices were also used as a form of medicine. They were used in medicinal prescriptions and were thought to prevent disease. Lastly, according to the article, “Why Salt?”, spices were also used to pay Roman soldiers.
Spices affected trade and business in many ways. First, according to the article, “Why Salt?”, “As Rome grew, it became a great trading center, and salt was one of the main items traded there.” Second, the article, “The Life of Spice” states that in its beginning stages, trading required people to tackle an exhausting trip across land where camels carried the spices. One of the most popular routes became known as “The Silk Road”. This was the location in which many civilizations were founded and developed. Lastly, according to the article, “Nine Fascinating Facts about the Spice Trade,” Arab traders controlled the spice trade between Europe and the East for almost 5,000 years
Spices caused nations to grow more powerful in many ways. First, according to the article “The Life of Spice,” Rome continued to grow more powerful when they set up a trade center in Egypt. Rome took control of the spice trade when “all spices from Asia had to pass through this center to get to Southern Europe and northern Africa.” Second, nations all over Europe wanted to take the power. Venice, Italy soon became a huge port for spice trading. Venice required that traders payed high taxes on this spice exchange, which got the nation more power and money. Lastly, the want for power went to the next level when wars starting breaking out. Multiple nations went to war over the Spice Islands in Indonesia; trading with these islands would make the winning nation very, very rich.
In conclusion, spices have quite the history! They served many different purposes, affected trade and business, and even made nations more powerful! While collecting evidence for this project, I even learned that America was the first nation to introduce dehydrated spices, such as onion powder. It is amazing to think that ingredients that we throw into a recipe to make food taste yummy had such an impact on ours and other nations all over the world. It keeps me wondering though. What are the odds that there is a spice out there that we haven’t discovered yet?
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