"You've got to taste this," Marco Polo said, pulling a bag of cloves from his pouch. And the western world was never the same again.
Can you imagine what the world would be like if not for spices? The search for a quick route to the spice islands spurred the age of exploration. Columbus discovered America. Magellan sailed around the world. The Dutch established a refueling outpost on the southern tip of Africa. All for the sake of spices.
Without them, we'd be stuck in the middle ages, fuedal plebes who farm dirt for a living and fear our own shadows.
Exotic smells and flavors, conjure up distant memories of far off lands.
Cinnamon from Sri Lanka. Vanilla from Tahiti. Cloves from Indonesia. Pepper from India. Anise from Egypt. Cardomam from Turkey. Ginger from China.
All meet together in the bottom of my teapot.
I've been on a personal quest, a search for the perfect homemade blend of Chai spice tea. It's a search that has taken me up and down the tea and spice aisles at grocery stores, to the bulk food section at another store. I've been in touch with the Tazo tea company. I've dug through old spices in Mom's cupboard and raided the international supplies of a friend. And, finally, I gazed at the hundreds of jars of spices in the Market Spice Company store. Each jar held its spice like a secret, ready to be whispered or shouted with the opening of the lid.
The quest is over. Was all the exploration worth the discovery? I think it was.
1 comment:
Being here in Singapore reminds me of my first visit here in 1996. We made a trip across into Malaysia to Malacca. What I was expecting was a couple of days at the beach with my new fiancee (along with her brother and best friend); what I got was a history lesson in the spice trade. Not just exploration, but wars were fought over those trade routes. Malacca is the place to go if you want to learn that history.
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