Two related questions about food from the past?

Question

[1] Some of the explorers of the 16th century were looking for a shorter route to Asia through the Northwest Passage to make it easier to get spices home. What was the incentive to risk death from imagined sea monsters or sailing off of the edge of the world to get spice when most of us wouldn't even make a special trip to the store just because we're out of pepper or cinnamon? (Hint: it's not exactly for the reason you and I use spice)

[2] Why was turning water into wine considered a good and helpful miracle, something befitting a deity? After all if somebody wanted to impress the world today, would they turn water into whiskey or beer? No. More likely the other way around. Why was wine better than water? (Hint: it has nothing to do with intoxication)

Answer 1

You know both of these answers.

Pepper was appreciated so much because meat was often spoiled by lack of refrigeration or inadequate salting. The pepper helped cover the bad taste of rotted flesh.
- - -
Wine or beer were known to be "safer" than water
because the ethanol content provided some protection against bacteria.

I wrote an article on the Battle of Flodden (in 1513)
for Command magazine in the early 1990s.
One factor precipitating the battle (English verses Scots)
was the fact that the English had run out of beer.
The Earl of Surrey commanding the English
had to start the battle quickly before the men deserted.
No one wanted to drink water.
In those days, English and Scots of all ages drank
small beer rather than water on a regular daily basis.
(Small beer has a lower alcohol content than today's beer, but it was still a protection against bacterial contamination related to poor human and animal waste disposal.)

{Perhaps I should have waited to answer so we could
see who else knew these. Fun stuff. Good questions.}

Answer 2

1. Explorers were willing to risk death because spices were the most valuable commodity of the day. So money and power would be the reason.
2. Turning water into wine, it was the transformation, not the wine that made it a miracle.

Answer 3

There was no refrigeration. To prevent meat from spoiling, people drowned their meat in salt to preserve and dry it (like beef jerky). They also used a lot of spices like pepper to cover up the taste of the salted or spoiled meat.

Unfortunately for Europeans, these spices did not grow anywhere in Europe. They were only found in Asian countries like China, Japan, and India (these countries were known together as "The Indies"). It was very difficult to get the spices from Asia to Europe. Spices had to be brought across thousands of miles of dangerous mountains and deserts by spice traders, with bandits waiting to rob the spice caravans. The alternative was to bring the spices by ship, but the sea voyage was also dangerous because of pirates and storms. Since it was so difficult to get spices from Asia to Europe, spices were very expensive.

In 1453, spices became even more expensive and difficult to find in Europe when the land route from Asia to Europe was cut-off by the Turkish Empire. The European rulers tried several times to defeat the Turks in battle, but they were turned back each time.

Several European rulers finally decided to try to find a route around the Turkish Empire. If a country could find a way to get these valuable spices to Europe, the rulers would be very rich.

As for wine, alcohol has bateria-killing properties, which made for more sterile environments.

Answer 4

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Answer 5

read the bible if you want to know