The Taste of Conquest: The Rise and Fall of the Three Great Cities of Spice
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It turns out that the scientists are as frustrated by the government’s paranoia as I was. Like researchers everywhere, they are eager to share their findings, but they are not allowed to present papers at overseas conferences. What seems to excite them the most these days is sustainable agriculture.
“In a natural undisturbed system, in the forest state,” the irrepressible field botanist breaks in, “pepper plants exist that are a hundred years old. But when you disturb the natural system, by tilling and adding manure, the life will deteriorate. Under cultivation, the plant will have a productive life of [merely] seven to fifteen years.”
“The disease problem is worse than it was a generation ago,” the brilliant botanist silences the others to explain. “Nobody has specifically studied the causes. It could be climate change, the introduction of exogenous agents, or some other factor. One thing is for sure: once the people start applying chemical fertilizers, the local microorganism population—that used to sustain all the plantations in olden days—will decline. So when you use organic fertilizers, there is a very good response, not only with black pepper but all the crops.”
Of course, organic is not popular just with the scientists; consumers in the developed world want it, too. Even McCormick has an organic line now. When I talk to the people in the middle, though—the farmers and the exporters—they’re resistant. Nonetheless, there are a few who see the future in growing spices organically, as they have for hundreds of years.
The past may hold a prescription for the future in other respects as well. Medical researchers in India and elsewhere have been trying to isolate the properties that make spices so potent in Ayurvedic medicine. Like the old Galenic system, the traditional Indian practice of Ayurveda is based on a scheme of bodily humors that are naturally affected by what you eat. To Ayurveda practitioners, spices are as much drugs as flavorings. The scientists at the IISR are happy to shift from discussions of spectrum analysis and genetic engineering to trading opinions on traditional healing practices. The brilliant botanist turns out to be a font of information on the local medical uses of spices.
“Nutmeg is a natural remedy, here, for sleeplessness.” He begins his monologue in an insistent staccato rhythm. “But you need just a small amount. We rub a little on babies’ lips to make them sleep, but just a little grain.” Myristicin, the active ingredient in nutmeg, has shown some potential as a weapon against cancer and liver disease, at least in animals. But there’s the thorny problem of its hallucinogenic effects. “The hippies, you know, in olden times, they would take one glass of liquor and dissolve the nutmeg in it.” The botanist tells the story and chortles. He adds, “Don’t try it. It is toxic!”
“Pepper, too, is used in Ayurveda medicine,” the spice guru continues. “There are enzymes in pepper that have antibiotic properties.” Mostly, though, scientists have focused on piperine’s effectiveness as a “potency multiplier.” Pepper is often added to Ayurvedic prescriptions to increase their effectiveness. It seems to do the same thing with more conventional medicines. In one study, researchers found that they could decrease the dose of a tuberculosis medicine by more than half with no loss in effectiveness; in another, chemotherapy for lung cancer seemed to work better when supplemented with piperine. An American has even patented Bioperine, a piperine extract, as a “bioavailability enhancer.”
“All the spices have medical qualities,” the others add their chorus of agreement. Ginger and cardamom are used to calm nausea. The capsaicin from chili peppers is widely used in arthritis creams. Galangal seems to kill cancerous cells while leaving the healthy ones alive, at least in the laboratory. In a study by the U.S. Agricultural Research Service, less than a half teaspoon a day of cinnamon reduced the blood sugar levels of sixty volunteers in Pakistan with type 2 diabetes who participated. Even their levels of LDL cholesterol (the bad one) dropped.
These days, though, the medical wunderkind of the spice world is turmeric. Curcumin, the active agent in turmeric, is a potent antioxidant and the subject of medical research at major universities around the world. The spice may protect against leukemia; it has been observed to inhibit the growth of cancerous cells in the lungs of mice with breast cancer; it seems to prevent the formation of diabetic cataracts; it pushes melanoma cells to self-destruct and may be useful in combating malaria, treating cystic fibrosis, fighting Alzheimer’s, and reducing chemotherapy-induced fatigue. “Nature’s gift to antioxidants,” the botanical economist chimes in, chuckling. And it makes a fine “natural” colorant, too.
And what of spices as weapons? Capsaicin is widely used in pepper sprays such as Mace (no connection to the Moluccan spice) both as a self-defense aid and, by the police, for crowd control. In the United States, a high-potency spray is marketed as a bear repellent, and in Africa, fences are smeared with a cocktail of grease and capsaicin to keep elephants at bay. Scientists at India’s Defense Research Laboratory have publicly identified the Tezpur as the subcontinent’s hottest chili, though just what they plan to do with it is, I’m sure, top secret. (It’s almost two hundred times as hot as a jalapeño.) Suffice it to say, it should probably be banned from hand luggage everywhere.
The scientists at the Indian Institute of Spices Research have more quotidian concerns. At the end of our delightfully informative interview, I wish them good luck in their battle against root rot and their search for the tastiest pepper, turmeric, and ginger. I pay the ten dollars that the Ministry of Agriculture requested for my admission to the spice temple and climb into the waiting taxi. I wave goodbye to the security guard at the front gate as the car swerves onto the main road to Calicut.
It had been a long trip from St. Albans to the pepper coast of Malabar, through a world of flavors and centuries of pungent smells. I recalled Luca’s telling me—how many bottles of Prosecco had we drunk?—that the world changes but people don’t. Spices were trendy for much the same reason in 1500 as they are now. Once again, people are looking to spices for the elixir of life or a ticket to paradise. And the future bodes well for people who study spices as well as for those who come up with new ways for us to consume them. As they have done for at least two thousand years, the people in the middle will take their share, paying the farmers as little as possible and charging us as much as they can get away with. As I looked out the window of the speeding taxi at the pepper woods flashing by behind fences painted with cell phone ads, it occurred to me that like those long-ago Venetians, Lisboetas, and Amsterdamers, we are living in a new golden age of spice.
List of Illustrations and Maps
Front Matter
Andries Beeckman, The Fortress of Batavia, circa 1656. Courtesy of the Rijksmuseum.
width="100%" Front Matter
The “Apothecaries’ Art,” from the Libro delle gabelle, mid-fourteenth century. Biblioteca Riccardiana. Reproduced under concession of the Italian Ministry for Cultural Heritage and Activities.
Front Matter
Medieval trade routes.
Part 1
Vittore Carpaccio, The Miracle of the True Cross at Rialto, circa 1496. Gallerie dell’ Accademia. Reproduced under concession of the Italian Ministry for Cultural Heritage and Activities.
Part 1
Medieval trade routes in the eastern Mediterranean.
Part 1
“Pepper,” late sixteenth century, from Garcia da Orta’s Colloquies on the Simples and Drugs of India (London: Henry Sotheran and Co., 1913).
Part 1
“Banquet Scene,” from Cristoforo da Messisbugo’s Banchetti compositioni di vivande, et apparecchio generale (Ferrara, 1549). Reproduced under concession of the Italian Ministry for Cultural Heritage and Activities.
Part 1
Bussolai sellers, from Gaetano Zompini’s Le arti che vanno per via nella città di Venezia, 1785. Courtesy of Antonio Barzaghi.
Part 2
“Lisbon,” from Pieter Boudewin van der Aa’s La galerie agréable du monde, before 1733. Biblioteca Casanatense. Reproduced under concession
of the Italian Ministry for Cultural Heritage and Activities.
Part 2
The Vera Cruz. Photo courtesy of Hernâni Amaral Xavier.
Part 2
The cape route to India and the Spice Islands.
Part 2
“Portuguese Gentlemen in India,” from Figurae variae…In Lingua Lusitana, 1540. Biblioteca Casanatense. Reproduced under concession of the Italian Ministry for Cultural Heritage and Activities.
Part 2
“Goa Marketplace,” from Jan Huyghen van Linschoten’s Navigatio ac itinerarium Iohannis Hugonis Linscotani (Amsterdam, 1614). Biblioteca Riccardiana. Reproduced under concession of the Italian Ministry for Cultural Heritage and Activities.
Part 2
“Cinnamon,” late sixteenth century, from Garcia da Orta’s Colloquies on the Simples and Drugs of India (London: Henry Sotheran and Co., 1913).
Part 3
Albert Cuyp, A Chief Merchant of the VOC, circa 1650. Courtesy of the Haags Historisch Museum.
Part 3
Pieter Claesz, Still Life with Turkey Pie, 1627, detail. Courtesy of the Rijksmuseum.
Part 3
Dutch East Indies.
Part 3
“Nutmeg,” mid-sixteenth century, from Herbal by Joseph Wood Krutch. Reprinted by permission of David R. Godine, Publisher.
Part 3
Anonymous, Jan Pietersz. Coen (1587–1629), circa 1625? Courtesy of the Rijksmuseum.
Back Matter
Edwin Tunis, Untitled (Pepper and Vanilla), circa 1934. Courtesy of McCormick & Company Inc.
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