Italiano
Look in your cupboard.
There will certainly be some of those things that have influenced geopolitical and commercial balances for millennia: spices.
To get to the root, we have to start from far away. In Egypt, at the time of the Early Dynastic Period: third millennium BC, year more, year less.
The first documents attesting to a trade in spices date back to that time. From there, for centuries, the spice trade has involved historical civilizations, peoples, empires and later, Nations.
For the Spice trade, alliances have been signed, wars have been declared (there were often the English, Dutch and Portuguese involved…), new lands and new seas have been explored, they were made huge investments in terms of wealth and workforce they have no equal in the history of Mankind.
In conclusion: spices have had, albeit indirectly, crucial importance in the history of humanity.
But why? What was so special about spices?
Spices were primarily considered medicinal: it is no coincidence that the apothecary was considered in the same way as a medical profession today (in some languages the term itself is used for indicating the pharmacist).
Let it be clear, in most cases they were attributed healing properties that they didn’t actually have.
But spices were beautiful and rare… according to the clichés of the time, they were also supposed to be good for your health!
Spices, like today, were also used to season foods.
But certainly not in the table of the commoners.
They were in fact also status symbols. As precious and exotic, their use at the table gave prestige to the hosts.
And then, another food use: that of conservation.
When there were no refrigerators, spices helped to season meat (but also fish) and thus make them less vulnerable to microbes and bacteria, as well as to give flavour.
Oh, wait… that is still done today!
In this pic, capicollo, a traditional pork cold cut from Italy (aka “gabagool” among the American-Italian community) is spiced before being placed in the Inox Bim Climatic Cabinet, to complete a seasoning period of approximately 6 weeks.
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