Spice: The History of a Temptation | Jack Turner | READABLE POPULAR HISTORY

Spice: The History of a Temptation | Jack Turner | Frankincense and Myrrh

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Spice: The History...

	Spice: The History of a Temptation Jack Turner Vintage, 2005 - 384 pages average customer review:based on 20 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

A brilliant, original history of the spice trade?and the appetites that fueled it.

It was in search of the fabled Spice Islands and their cloves that Magellan charted the first circumnavigation of the globe. Vasco da Gama sailed the dangerous waters around Africa to India on a quest for Christians?and spices. Columbus sought gold and pepper but found the New World. By the time these fifteenth- and sixteenth-century explorers set sail, the aromas of these savory, seductive seeds and powders had tempted the palates and imaginations of Europe for centuries.

Spice: The History of a Temptation is a history of the spice trade told not in the conventional narrative of politics and economics, nor of conquest and colonization, but through the intimate human impulses that inspired and drove it. Here is an exploration of the centuries-old desire for spice in food, in medicine, in magic, in religion, and in sex?and of the allure of forbidden fruit lingering in the scents of cinnamon, pepper, ginger, nutmeg, mace, and clove.
We follow spices back through time, through history, myth, archaeology, and literature. We see spices in all their diversity, lauded as love potions and aphrodisiacs, as panaceas and defenses against the plague. We journey from religious rituals in which spices were employed to dispel demons and summon gods to prodigies of gluttony both fantastical and real. We see spices as a luxury for a medieval king?s ostentation, as a mummy?s deodorant, as the last word in haute cuisine.

Through examining the temptations of spice we follow in the trails of the spice seekers leading from the deserts of ancient Syria to thrill-seekers on the Internet. We discover how spice became one of the first and most enduring links between Asia and Europe. We see in the pepper we use so casually the relic of a tradition linking us to the appetites of Rome, Elizabethan England, and the pharaohs. And we capture the pleasure of spice not only at the table but in every part of life.

Spice is a delight to be savored.

From the Hardcover edition.

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READABLE POPULAR HISTORY - A DELIGHT!

Spice, The History of a Temptation by Jack Turner is a very well written history of the spice trade, written in the popular history mode. A tremendous amount of research must have gone into this work as it is absolutely filled with little gems of detail and wonderful small side stories. There are a number of other books out there that deal with this subject. A recent one, Dangerous Tastes by Andrew Dalby comes to mind, but the work being reviewed here, unlike so many of the others, including the aforementioned, is not an imposing tome which reads more like a doctorial dissertation, than a readable story. If I want sleep, I can always increase my exercise or simply take some sort of pill. I read books such as this for information and to be entertained. They go hand in hand. With Spice I got just what I wanted.

With this work the author has given us a very readable history of spices and the spice trade, starting from the beginning dating back to ancient Egypt and beyond. Of course the majority of the book is rather Eurocentric, but hey, that is where the author was educated, did his research and wrote the book. I suppose if you want a history such as this that is not Eurocentric, then you should probably find a non European author! Anyway, the author has discussed at length the impact spice has had upon world civilization. It was the prime motivator during the Age of Discovery and of course an undeniable pillar of Western Civilization along with quite a number of other civilizations throughout history. Today we have oil; in days gone by we had spice!

The author's organization of the book is different, but once you get use to it, it does make sense. At times he will bounce around just a bit, from country to country; from civilization to civilization. This is good though as it allows the reader to grasp the magnitude of both time and distance in the saga of the spice trade and just what it means to us.

This book does a very nice job of covering the various uses of spice throughout the ages, some of which include being used as currency, embalming, food, in religious ceremonies, sexual aids and as excuses to start some very nasty little wars. He does address the culinary uses of spices by various peoples from around the world and at different times at length and in particular dwells in the Middle Ages which is an era of special interest to me. I found his comments and observation of the diets of various people quite fascinating and he has done well to dispel some of the myths that have grown up around this area. This is something that is long over due.

All in all, a delightful read. If I have one complaint, and it is a very minor complaint, I did not that in some of the chapters the author was a bit repetitious. This is not a major problem, as of course I am not the sharpest knife in the drawer, so perhaps the repetition was good for me. I very much recommend this one for a good and very informative read.

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Frankincense and Myrrh

Spice: The History of a Temptation
By Jack Turner

The Spice Trade

Since the cultures of the Egyptians and Greeks, men have hunted spices. The quest for spices brought Columbus to the New World (by accident); fueled the Dutch and British East Indies Corporations and created a demand that spread to other commodities like sugar, tobacco and cotton.

In his excellent book "Spice: The History of a Temptation", Jack Turner examines the rise of the spice trade and the players in the story with generous and intensively- researched literary allusions from Pliny and Plato to Dryden and Donne. Turner doesn't sacrifice historical accuracy for accessibility, a frequent flaw in popular history.

Turner divides his work into three major sections: Palate, Body and Spirit. The role of spices (Frankincense and Myrrh) in religious ceremony; the supposed aphrodisiac power of some spices; and of course their effect on food are examined:

"Yet if the aphrodisiac reputation of spices long had the status of medical fact," he writes, "it is equally true that their appeal also relied on a heavy dose of pure superstition. For a magical reputation an outré quality is often recommendation enough, and like other aphrodisiac staples such as rhino horn and tiger penis, spices long carried the freight of Eastern mystery, rarity and a high price." (Spice: P. 198)

It's interesting to note how popular belief changed over the years. From an almost mystical obsession in the middle Ages, spices became synonymous with wealth and excess, and fell out of favor in more recent years.

Jack Turner has taken the history of the spice trade and incorporated it into the cultural history of those involved in it, which is the best kind of history.

******

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Wonderful research, interesting stories

The brilliance of this book is not just in the research, which is considerable, but in the fascinating stories told about spices and the spice-trade throughout history. From the mummification of Pharaoh Ramesses II who was found with peppercorns in his nose (a spice not grown in Egypt - so how did it get there?) to the descriptions of different spices valued in different places, this is an unusual book you will find yourself returning to until it's done.

I especially liked learning the strange tidbits of history associated with spices, like the fact that they were considered to come from the East where the Garden of Eden was!

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Good, but could be better

This is a good intro book, but it could certainly be better. The main problems with this book is that it is completely and totally Euro-centric. We have absolutely no idea what people outside of Europe did with spices or with the goods we traded them for the spices. Spices were, however, a major engine of world trade and economic growth in the 'Age of Exploration', something the author uses as a justification to study spices in general. But then the study narrows into the uses of spices in Europe, and leaves the 'big picture' of world history, except to mention the trade being responsible for the Black Death.

Towards the end, the book also becomes a little repetitive. For example, first we learn that the Romans used spices to embalm the dead, then we learn that medieval Europeans also used spices to embalm the dead. This covers two chapters, which could easily be covered in one. There are other examples of this. So, in general, it's a good book, but it could be shorter and better.

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Very informative, but bogs down in repetition

This is an extremely well-researched book and is brimming with all sorts of interesting anecdotes and historical analysis. It's obvious an enormous amount of work went into this. But... it would have been better if it was about 80-100 pages shorter. Not because I prefer short books (the longer the better if it's great), but because 1) the author seems to keep making the same points over and over, and 2) it seems there's not a source he found that he's not going to quote from. These two things feed off each other until the book bogs down in repetition and runs out of steam about 2/3 the way through--I kept thinking, "Wait a minute, didn't the author already make this point in a previous chapter?" I had to push myself through the last third of the book until the last chapter (Epilogue), which finished nicely.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4

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