How did spices come about?

Answer 1

A Brief Timeline of Spice History:

50,000 BC
By this time, archeologists believe man had noticed that certain leaves impart delicious flavor to meat.

2300 BC

In one of man's earliest written records the Assyrians tell of their gods drinking sesame seed wine before they created the earth.

1920 BC

Biblical history tells of Joseph of the coat of many colors being sold to spice caravan by his brothers.

1520 BC

The book of Exodus in the Bible tells of Children of Israel fleeing Egypt, taking with the "principal spices"

1453 BC

Greeks begin Olympic Games at which victors were awarded laurel (bay leaf) wreaths.

992 BC

Queen of Sheba visits Solomon with "camels that bear spices" as her principal gift.

80 BC

Alexandria, Egypt becomes greatest spice trading port of Eastern Mediterranean, with one of its entrances known as "Pepper Gate."

50 BC

Romans bring mustard seed to England.

65 AD

Funeral rites for Nero's wife, Poppaca, at Rome consumes year's supply of cinnamon.

300

Probable date of oldest cookbook by Apicius; recipes richly spiced.

410

Alaric the Visigoth demands 3000 pounds of pepper as ransom from Rome and two years later extracts 3000 pounds annual pepper tribute from the city.

595

Mohammed weds wealthy spice-trading widow; his followers combine missionary work with spice-trading in East and build first spice monopoly.

900

Venice rising as commercial power - much of it based on spices- beginning to bring Europe out of the Dark Ages.

1179

Guild of Pepperers founded in London; France forms Corporation of Spicers. Pepperers to become Guild of Grossers in 14th Century.

1298

Marco Polo returns from China; tells where spices grow and awakens western world's interest in trading direct with the Orient.

1418

Portuguese Prince Henry establishes his navigation college to spur World-wide spice quest.

1492

Columbus sails to seek more direct passage to Orient's spice riches, opening Age of Exploration.

1493
Columbus discovers allspice in West Indies.

1494

Columbus' physician, Chanea, describes Mexican capsicums (red peppers).

1498

Vasco de Gama reaches Calicut, India, the spice center; pepper prices fall in Europe.

1505

Portuguese discover Ceylon, cinnamon source.

1511

Albuquerque seizes Malacca on Malay Peninsula, one of the most important spice ellipuliums.

1519-1522

Magellan sails westward for Spain looking for new spice lands; surviving ship returns with enough spices to finance entire expedition.

1529

Charles V of Spain cedes all rights Spain had claimed in Spice Islands to Portugal for 350,000 ducats.

1563

Garcia da Orta writes "Colloquies on Drugs and Simples of India" the first scientific book on oriental spices published in the western world.

1580

Sir Francis Drake returns to London from round-the-world voyage that included visit to Spice Islands.

1585

West Indies ship arrives in Europe with first cargo of Jamaica ginger- first oriental spice to be grown successfully in New World.

1599

Van Neck establishes first Dutch trading posts in Banda, Amboina and Ternate, the "Spice Islands."

1600

British East India Company founded.

1609

Record 116,000 pounds of cloves reach England in one shipment.

1640

Dutch seize Malacca and control of most spice production in the East.

1672

Elihu Yale reaches India and starts spice business, which eventually provides the fortune with which he founded Yale University.


1704

Europe first reads "Arabian Nights" and Sinbad's spice quest.

1760

Large amounts of cloves and nutmegs burned at Amsterdam to keep up prices.

1770

Governor Poivre of Mauritius steals cloves and nutmeg seeds from Dutch and starts new growing areas on his island, thus affecting the first breech in Holland's East Indies monopoly.

1786

The English found Penang, later to become major eastern pepper port.

1797

Captain Jonathan Carnes of Salem, Massachusetts returns from Sumatra with first large pepper cargo and puts United States in world spice trade.

1805

U.S. reaches peak of its Sumatra pepper trade; exports alone totaled 7,000,000 pounds in one year.

1821

First U.S. spice grinding company started in Boston.

1835

English settlers in Texas invent chili powder as convenient way of making Mexican-type dishes.

1870

California begins growing mustard seeds.

1873

Piracy and native hostility finally snuff out America's direct pepper trade with Sumatra and the last of the 967 pepper voyages is completed.

1907

American Spice Trade Association formed.

1910

California begins chili pepper production.

1931
Dehydrated onion and garlic products go to market.

1937

Prof. Szent-Gyorgyi wins Nobel Prize for research with paprika, in which he discovers Vitamin C.

1940

First commercial paprika crops grown in California.

1953

Freeze-dried chives introduced to U.S.

1969

Spices reach the moon, as seasoning the Apollo Astronaut’s food.

1971

Spice trading with China re-opened as U.S. ends 21 years' embargo.

1972

Domestic production reaches 30 percent of total U.S. spice consumption for first time.

1976

World trade in black pepper sets an all-time high of 220 million pounds.

1977

American Spice Trade Association completes first complete nutritional analysis of spices.

1981

Spice usage in the U.S. passes the half billion pound mark for the first time.

1983

British study finds powdered ginger twice as effective as Dramamine in preventing Motion Sickness.

1984

U.S. Food and Drug Administration publishes rules for gamma irradiation of spices.
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Good resources:

http://www.theepicentre.com/Spices/spicetrd.html

http://www.astaspice.org/history/frame_history.htm

http://www.spiceadvice.com/history/index.html

Answer 2

Spices have been used in cooking for thousands of years, can you imagine, you have dried meat from the previous autumn and by the spring it's getting a bit "high" and tastes bad, what better to flavour your dinner than spices, They came to Europe via the "Spice Roads" from the far east,

Answer 3

To understand the nature of spices, it is necessary to understand the difference between spices and herbs. Spices are tree barks, nuts or roots and in some cases minerals (salt springs to mind.). Herbs are flowers, leaves or foliage. Since the earliest cooking utensils were probably the bark from trees, it is likely that early man found that some barks added a pleasing flavor to the foods and searched for specific barks to use in cooking, then passed this information on to the next generation. Usually the items were burned, or cooked in foods, however there are those whose purpose is only for incense used to mask community odors. Some became so prized they became rare and thus were sought by those in power, or of wealthy status, as a means to please the gods in sacrifice.

Answer 4

Spices were primarily used to offset the taste and smell of meat going bad. Refridgeration and preservation were not available in the old days and often the meat wasn't fresh. Some spices also killed off much of the bacteria growing.

Answer 5

Spices have been prominent in human history virtually since their inception. Spices were among the most valuable items of trade in the ancient and medieval world. In the story of Genesis, Joseph was sold into slavery by his brothers to spice merchants. In the biblical poem Song of Solomon, the male speaker compares his beloved to many forms of spices.

Spices were one of the primary reasons Portuguese navigator Vasco Da Gama sailed to India in 1499. After Christopher Columbus returned from the Americas, he described to investors the many new spices available there

Answer 6

You're not going to like this answer. When spices were first brought back to England by the marauding pirates (Francis Drake et al) they were used to disguise the taste of meat which was well passed it's sell by date - no refrigeration in those days.

Answer 7

I guess by now you know all you want to know about spices, so I won't bore you further! Suffice to say that someone somewhere discovered that they a) preserved their food,B)
Killed the bacteria and made food palatable and c) just generally made boring old stuff more interesting!

Answer 8

Ever since the world realised that ,girls (little & big) were made of sugar & spice,& all thhings nice.

Answer 9

i guess as a seasoning thing to make food taste better in times where it was bland or to cover up nasty flavours when preservation was hard or bad quality especially in hotter places where food went off or meat quality was poor

Answer 10

well, ginger and baby were friends first. they met up with sporty, who introduced them to scary, who was dating posh at the thyme