After Columbus discover the new world, he discover spices. Spices in North America are much different than spices in Europe. By the way, before Columbus, Spice in Europe mainly refers to salt and sugar. This is mainly why Columbus are also been called the father of spices, when he is only one of the founders. Spices were immensely valuable because they were extremely elusive and difficult to obtain. People needed to sail across the ocean all the way to North America to get spices. There are special wharf for spices trades. many European countries will gather for trading spices.Many of the trading routes were contra by one of the dominate power in Europe, the Rome Empire. Roman Empire controlled most of the trading routes n the mediterranean Sea area, for this they get better spices supply. Spices were used in wine to change the sour taste. even till today many wine are marked spiced wine. Spices were as worth as gold at the time. Most of the people had very less knowledge of spices, some of them even thought spice are grow in trees. There aren't that many types of spices, too. But two types of spices changes the world, Pepper and Cinnamon.
Different than Europe, as an ancient civilization, Egyptians used spices for different things long time ago. Spices like Cumin, Fenugreek and Corriander were used as medicine in Ancient Egypt. Egypt located close to the ancient spice route. It grew many different types of spices as cumin, coriander and cinnamon. Pepper arrived because of the Greeks. Coriander was prizy at the time. Coriander seeds were planted in tombs as a symbol of eternal love and enduring passion. Cumin was regarded as a sign of faithfulness. Sometimes soldiers and merchants will carry cumin seeds in their pocket as a memory of those waiting for them back home. They were also thought to settle the stomach and aid in digestion, which was pretty common at the time.
Cinnamon, one of the most important spice in history, was considerably more expensive than cumin and coriander. It was less available to the common laborer of ancient Egypt. It was often used in the embalming process. It was a powerful antimicrobial agent, which means it can help prevent the spoilage of meat. Sometimes it was also used in corpuses to prevent them from rotting. It would be mixed in with other spices so that its flavor and effectiveness would be enhanced. |
Before European, Asian trades spice around the silk road. As picture above, silk road went from Asia to Middle East and to North Africa. Indians, Chinese, and Egyptians trades spices with each other and also some other small countries around. European joint this trade later, but thy mostly but off spice than trading them since Europe had less spices.
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