Cumin, Camels, and Caravans

  Although some goods still moved surreptitiously through underground routes to black markets nearby, it would have been difficult for Jews or Christians to deliver many goods to more distant buyers clandestinely. Thus most Jewish and Christian spice traders sought allies within the Muslim mercantile class and negotiated with them for favors and privilege. Few of the People of the Book who were involved in globalized trade would ever again deny that Muslims had gained the upper hand. In a matter of a century, they had consolidated numerous fiefdoms into vast transcontinental networks throughout which most players adhered to the same economic principles. That fact alone made the minor economic experiments and expeditions first organized by Khadijah and Muhammad breakthrough moments in the history of trade, for their innovations and ethics emanated from Mecca and Medina to much of the rest of the Eastern Hemisphere.

  While in the Moroccan port of Essaouira one spring, I slowly came to realize that Jews have not only survived for centuries in the Islamic Maghreb but have also thrived as partners with Arab traders there. Here, both practicing Jews and their descendants who became converts to Islam (called la’louj in Berber) have lived among Arabs, Berbers, Greeks, Phoenicians, Portuguese, and Gnawa Sufis descended from West Africans of Mauritania, Senegal, Mali, and Ghana for upward of two thousand years. Some scholars say the Jews first came to Essaouira, then known as Mogador, in pursuit of African gold but they ended up trading in salt instead. In time, they became esteemed as spice traders, jewelry makers, woodworkers, and blacksmiths.

  While wandering around the ancient medina looking for spice markets, I came into the oldest part of the city, a quiet quarter known as the Mellah, “the place where the Jews reside.” Here the Jews had their synagogue, schools, fountain, baths, and most of their homes, and I hoped to glimpse remnants of that past and evidence of their artisanship. But what struck me as I walked down the narrow corridors of the Mellah were the symbols carved into sandstone on the portals above the doors, icons that marked one’s ethnicity, faith, and tolerance for other faiths.

  When I saw a carving of the Star of David sitting by itself above an ancient doorway, I assumed that I was in a Jews-only sector of the city. But I soon noticed other doorways marked by the Star of David and a rose with four petals, an ancient symbol of Christian hospitality. Perhaps this house had belonged to a Jew who had married a Christian, or was a Jewish home that had welcomed Christian sailors staying over in the port. There were also doors with the Star of David juxtaposed with a rose of eight petals, the symbol of Arab Muslims. I saw other symbols as well, such as pomegranate blossoms, an Andalusian symbol of welcome, and an olive branch, a sign of peace welcoming all comers.

  I had learned that many Jews had been brought to Essaouira as tujjar al-sultan, the merchants that Arab sultans enlisted to help them negotiate trade with both African and European Christians. I could now see how the city served as a gateway to the west coast of Africa, Portugal, and the Canary Islands. As I looked around me in the medina, I could sense that Essaouira continues to host active exchanges among a multitude of faiths and ethnicities, as it always has.

  FIGURE 12. Cryptic symbols such as these, carved in stone above doorways in the Jewish section of Essaouira, Morocco, once guided travelers and traders to homes that accepted Jews, Christians, or Muslims as boarders. (Photo by the author.)

  But what I learned that impressed me the most was how even the most sedentary Jew in Essaouira could post messages on ships and camel caravans that would reach other Jewish merchants, not only in the nearby ports of Agadir and Azemmour but also inland at Marrakech. By passing messages through a network of ship captains, the Jews of Essaouira could communicate with merchants in Larache, Tangier, Tunis, Cyrene (or Libya), Alexandria, Gaza, Byblos (Lebanon), Aleppo, and Smyrna. By runner, donkey rider, and camel drover, their requests for spices and payment could be delivered to Meknes and Fez to the east, or Draa, Messine, and Sigil Massa to the south. Some of their messages and spice orders eventually made it to Damascus, Baghdad, and Aden.

  While the Muslims were going about ruling and coordinating the wider world, Jews had found a vehicle on which they could piggy-back their own interests. It was in Essaouira that I first imagined how a Jewish or Muslim trader there might have communication and influence as far away as the North China Sea, some sixty-two hundred miles to the east of their harbor on the western edges of the Maghreb. This is a phenomenon that becomes more evident as this story proceeds.

  • • •

  • DAMASCUS ROSE • ROSE OF CASTILE

  If a single wonderfully scented flower can reveal more about the history of the spice trade than any other blossom, it is the Damascus rose (Rosa × damascena), with its sweetly persistent fragrance and flavor. This peculiar double-flowered rose is not known to exist in the wild anywhere on earth. Instead, it appears to have arisen as an accidental hybrid between the common wild rose of the Caucasus and one or two others, perhaps the Levant rose R. phoenicia cultivated by Phoenician women in ports of the Mediterranean.

  No one is sure whether this hybrid was first recognized in present-day Syria or Turkey, but the history of Rosa × damascena has long been tied to the capital of Syria, the country once called the Land of Roses. Damascus is certainly where this rose has been cultivated for the longest stretch of recorded history. Called al-warda by the Levantine Arabs, its pink to pale reddish petals are rich in the aromatic oils geraniol, citronellol, and nerol, though one particular chemical, beta-damascone, provides its most distinctive fragrance. Herbalists everywhere steep its fragrant petals in spring water, olive oil, or alcohol to make “rose water,” which they then use as a flavoring for loukoumia (Turkish delight), jams, jellies, and sauces.

  When I was four or five years old, I had the impression that my Lebanese and Syrian grandfathers, all of my uncles, and my father naturally smelled of roses. Whenever they called me habibi and kissed me on both cheeks, as Arab men are fond of doing to children in their clan, I became overwhelmed by the fragrance of the Damascus rose. It was not until several years later when I went to a barber shop with one of my uncles that I witnessed how Rex the barber splashed an astringent mixed with rose water on my uncle’s newly shaven skin and greased his hair with rose oil. Not too much later, I read the words rose water on a bottle my father kept in my parents’ bathroom. However naively these early olfactory memories arose in me, they have had staying power.

  A half century later, after spotting so many roses lining the boulevards in Damascus, after tasting rose petals in the ras el hanout of Fez, after noticing that those same delicate petals were strewn on the walkways of the Alhambra in Granada, and after whiffing acres of roses in bloom on the terraced slopes of Jabal al-Akhdar in Oman, I realized that the Damascus rose could be found nearly everywhere I had traveled in the world. Nevertheless, I had always assumed that the rose of Castile displayed in Mexico during the Feast of the Virgin of Guadalupe was a flower of an altogether different origin. I was in error. These two roses of different names are one and the same.

  Throughout most of its travels, however, this rose has kept its allegiance to the Syrian capital evident. From Japan and Russia to England and France, horticulturists and florists reaffirm that this rose hails from Damascus. In the Arabic- and Farsi-speaking stretches of the world, variations of the ancient Semitic al-warda remain more prevalent. The rose was likely taken to Morocco and Spain by the Umayyads fleeing from Damascus; the Abbasids who then took power dispersed it to their strongholds in Persia and Turkey and vainly attempted to monopolize its production. But the Damascus rose surreptitiously found its way into other gardens, oils, ointments, and dishes, until the Abbasids conceded that it could not be owned. When the great eleventh-century medical scholar and chemist Ibn Sīnā (Avicenna) devised an easy means of distilling rose water from the petals, its reach expanded once more.

  Over the centuries, this venerable flower has infiltrated many cuisines, from Indian to Moorish to Latin American. Damascus rose oil, like mastic, contributes to t
he delightfulness of Turkish delight confections. It can also enrich a Moroccan tagine and a Spanish picadillo. I keep a bottle of rose water in my bathroom, and sometimes another in my kitchen, just to remember who I am.

  Davidson, Alan, ed. The Oxford Companion to Food. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999.

  Katzer, Gernot. “Gernot Katzer’s Spice Pages.” http://gernot-katzers-spicepages.com/engl/index.html. Accessed May 4, 2013.

  • MELEGUETA PEPPER • GRAINS OF PARADISE

  The reddish brown seeds of a perennial herb in the ginger family, melegueta pepper (Aframomum melegueta) may be what “pre-adapted” Africans to their predilection for tiny, fiery chiles. The crunchy texture of the seeds has been likened to the woodiness of cracked black pepper, with its gingerols leaving a slightly numbing piquancy in the mouth reminiscent of cloves. The exquisitely warm flavors of this native of the West African wetlands have been called peppery, spicy hot, gingery, and pleasantly bitter, with an aftertaste of lemon, cardamom, camphor, and cloves. The dozen chemicals already isolated from its essential oils suggest that it delivers a witch’s brew of pungency.

  The first peoples to recognize the value of the melegueta pepper were the foraging and farming tribes of West Africa, mostly from present-day Ghana, but also from Guinea, the Ivory Coast, Nigeria, and Sierra Leone. The most ancient name for this spice was rooted in a cognate that may have been wiza, since it is known as awisa or awusa by the Ewe, wisa or wusa by the Fante, wie by the Ga-Dangme, citta by the Hausa, and eza by the Nzema. In North African Arabic and Berber, it became tin al-fil, or “pepper fruit,” and in Turkish it was known as itrifil, a condensation of terms meaning “African pepper.”

  Long before the Portuguese came to dominate maritime trade with West African tribes, Berber, Arab, and Jewish merchants were obtaining melegueta pepper from the Pepper Coast of present-day Liberia, where harvests from the outback arrived in the ports. Tuareg camel caravans carried this highly valued spice up across the Sahel and the Sahara and then across the continent through the Sudan. These Arabic-speaking traders integrated it into an aromatic spice composite termed gâlat dagga, which also included black peppercorns, cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg, with cubeb sometimes substituted for the latter. Two other Arabic terms, jouz as-Sudan and gawz al-Sudan, probably reflected the sub-Saharan trade routes by which the spice entered the Arabian Peninsula and the Levant. Melegueta pepper also came across the Sahara on trade routes to the coast of present-day Libya.

  Once the Portuguese trading fleets ventured south of Morocco and Mauritania, they began to gain more direct access to the spice, which then, as now, went by several names. The term melegueta has uncertain origin, but it may be somehow linked to meligo, Italian for “millet,” or to Málaga, the ancient Phoenician port on the Andalusian coast across from Morocco. Another hypothesis is that it refers to the stinging and numbing sensations it produces, likening it to the effect one feels when stung by the malagua, or jellyfish, of coastal Africa. Curiously, the term melegueta was transferred to the tiny chiles that grew wild where the Portuguese established colonies of African slaves in Brazil.

  Despite the wide acceptance of the spice elsewhere, the Portuguese must have felt that they needed to dress up its label for the European market (where it was only marginally known), so they gave it two new names, sementes-do-paraíso and grãos-do-paraíso. The notion of an exquisitely spicy seed straight from paradise took root among the French, Dutch, German, Hebrew, Hungarian, Italian, Chinese, and Romanian spice merchants. The Slovaks were holdouts, comparing its seeds to those of cardamom, as were the English, who called it Guinea grains or alligator pepper. It continues to be a popular addition to many dishes in West Africa; in Europe and the United States, it is primarily used to flavor boutique beers, ginger ale, and gin and as a substitute for peppercorns by some high-end chefs.

  Green, Aliza. Field Guide to Herbs and Spices. Philadelphia: Quirk Books, 2006.

  Katzer, Gernot. “Gernot Katzer’s Spice Pages.” http://gernot-katzers-spicepages.com/engl/index.html. Accessed May 8, 2013.

  Sortun, Ana, with Nicole Chaison. Spice: Flavors of the Eastern Mediterranean. New York: Regan Books, 2006.

  • THARĪD • GAZPACHO AL-ANDALUS

  Soup with Unleavened Bread

  This gazpacho is a descendant of tharīd, or al-thurda, a class of thick broth-and-bread recipes that goes back to the pre-Islamic era on the Arabian Peninsula. It was reputably the Prophet Muhammad’s favorite dish, humble yet elegant and savory. There are many variants, most of which include soaking and crumbling unleavened flat bread, but a few stack the bread into a pyramid-like pile in a meat broth, puree, or soup. Some have vegetable purees—eggplant, cucumber, or tomato—and others do not. Classically prepared in a glazed porcelain basin called a mithrad, these dishes may be the precursor of Portuguese açorda soups, Andalusian gazpachos, and perhaps even the Mexican sopa de tortilla.

  The following recipe derived from Inés Butrón is a typical gazpacho of al-Andalus that probably came to the Iberian Peninsula between the time of the arrival of Abd al-Rahman I and Ziryab. When tomatoes and bell peppers were introduced from the New World, these members of the nightshade genus were cautiously incorporated. At first, they were well roasted and salted and then pureed to remove any bitterness or toxins. In time, however, tomatoes became as much the base of this soup as the bread had been.

  Serve with cucumber slices dressed with yogurt and dried mint. Makes six to eight ½-cup servings.

  4 ounces unleavened or day-old leavened flat bread, cut into small dice

  ½ cup white vinegar, plus more if needed

  2½ pounds vine-ripened red tomatoes, peeled, seeded, and cut into small dice, plus 1 firm tomato, seeded and minced

  1 green bell pepper, seeded and minced

  2 cloves garlic, minced

  ¾ to 1 cup olive oil

  1 teaspoon sea salt

  1 green onion, including tender green tops, finely chopped

  ½ cucumber, minced

  1 egg, hard-boiled, peeled, and chopped

  1 tablespoon mayonnaise, or ½ teaspoon anchovy paste

  1 to 2 cups bread cubes from country-style loaf, toasted

  In a bowl, moisten the flat bread by sprinkling it with the vinegar and then tossing it with your hands to distribute the vinegar evenly. Let the bread stand for a few minutes to soften, then crumble the bread with your fingers.

  Transfer the moistened bread to a large mortar or wooden bowl. Add the diced tomatoes, bell pepper, and garlic and crush with a pestle or a wooden spoon while gradually adding the olive oil. Add only as much oil as needed to create a flavorful, slightly chunky puree. Alternatively, use a blender or food processor, working in batches as needed. Season with the salt, then taste and adjust the seasoning with more vinegar and salt if needed. Cover and place in the refrigerator or a cool cellar for at least 1 hour before serving.

  Meanwhile, in a bowl, combine the minced tomato, green onion, cucumber, egg, and mayonnaise and stir to mix. Set aside to use as a garnish.

  Ladle the gazpacho into small bowls, top with the garnish and bread cubes, and serve.

  Butrón, Inés. Ruta gastronómica por Andalucía. Barcelona: Salsa Books, 2009.

  Casas Delgado, Francisco. La cocina andaluza Guadalquivir arriba: Charlas y recetas. Seville: Alfar, 1992, p. 183.

  CHAPTER 6

  Merging the Spice Routes with the Silk Roads

  I am now following the waft of fragrances into the deserts and steppes of Central Asia. My wife, Laurie, and I are making our way up to the crowded entrance of a market known as Shah Mansur. We have been dropped off by our friend Jumbaboy on the corner of the Nissor Muhammad and Lahati Boulevards in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, and we pause by the market’s gate to gulp down the aromas and take in the scene. Staged in a rather dingy, Soviet-era pavilion, this “green market” has been so sanitized and standardized by the Russians that it doesn’t seem as Oriental as foreign visitors like us might hope it to be.

  A
nd yet Jumbaboy has assured us that since the Russians left, Shah Mansur has regained some of its informality and local color. As we step through its entryway and begin to wander down the aisles, the piles of blemish-free fruits and candied nuts lure us in. Behind them I spot the stalls where the spices have arrived from both directions of the Silk Road, as well as from spice routes trailing southward.

  Perhaps Dushanbe today is as close as it gets to a true crossroads between the Silk Road and the spice routes that meander up from Afghanistan and Pakistan, India and Sri Lanka. Of course, no caravans of Bactrian camels alerted us to the fact that we were approaching such a crossroads, only old Russian Lada sedans and some recent Japanese and European imports. And this was clearly not a souk, bazaar, or khan of any antiquity, for the city of Dushanbe is not even a century old, and the pavilion of Shah Mansur is far younger than that. But as we move from booth to booth beneath the towering rain-shelter roof, we meet Tajiks and Turks, Uzbeks and Kyrgyz, Chinese and Kazakhs bringing in vegetables, fruits, spices, and fresh herbs from every direction.

  Vendors from the west and northwest—from Samarkand, Bishkek, and Bukhara—carry dried peaches and apricots, fresh figs and pomegranates, wild pistachios and huge Persian melons. Their counterparts from the highland steppes to our east and northeast, the Fergana Valley and the shores of Lake Izzyk, have transported half a dozen apple varieties, pears, persimmons and pumpkins, and dozens of dried Chinese spices and medicines. From the northwest—the republics that formerly made up the heartland of the Soviet Union—come napa cabbages, beets, Bukhara peppers, horseradish, garlic, and peas, and from the southeast, through Afghanistan from India, Myanmar, and the Moluccas, arrive mace and nutmeg, cinnamon and cloves, saffron and turmeric. The medicinal plants—piles of them next to old bronze balances that weigh them out by the ounce or gram—have come from who knows where—perhaps India, Tibet, and China.