Cumin, Camels, and Caravans. Gary Paul Nabhan
Sesame
Cloves
Damascus rose • Rose of Castile
Melegueta pepper • Grains of Paradise
Musk
Ginger
Pomegranate
Sumac
Anise
Coriander • Cilantro
Star anise
Sichuan pepper
Tuocha pu-erh • Camel’s breath tea
Cumin
Chile peppers
Annatto • Achiote
Allspice • Jamaica pepper
Vanilla
Chocolate
Illustrations
PLATES
1.A selection of spices
2.Frankincense gum oozing from a tree trunk in the nejd of Southern Oman
3.A Yemeni spice trader
4.Depiction of a camel caravan from the Middle Ages
5.Muslim women in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, selling vegetables, fruits, and spices
6.The facades of tombs cut from the rock cliff in Petra, Jordan
7.Ships arriving for trade in the harbors of the South China Sea
8.A stand selling mole preparations at the Flower Festival of San Angel, Mexico City
9.An Arab transformed into a taco vendor at a mobile food stand in Baja California Sur
FIGURES
1.An Omani forester approaches a frankincense tree
2.The al-Balid ruins near Salalah, Oman
3.A dhow near Lamu, Kenya
4.Bahla Fort in Oman
5.An oxen-driven water wheel being used for irrigation
6.Harira stews at Siwa Oasis in Egypt
7.A well in the Negev
8.Ruins of an ancient Omani trading center below the Jabal al-Akhdar plateau
9.Cloves spread out to dry in Zanzibar
10.Salman the Persian meeting merchants from the Quraysh tribe
11.Merchants in Timbuktu
12.Symbols carved above doorways in the Jewish section of Essaouira, Morocco
13.Herbal Viagra in a market in Dushanbe, Tajikistan
14.A camel train in Mongolia
15.Francisco Pradilla Ortiz, The Capitulation of Granada, 1882
16.The eastern part of the Anping Bridge, China
17.Qingjing Mosque in Quanzhou, China
18.A three-masted junk
19.Vasco da Gama delivering the letter of King Manuel of Portugal to the samuthiri of Calicut
20.The processing of cacao pods in the West Indies
MAPS
1.Spice trails of the Arabian Peninsula and Arabian Sea
2.Spice trails of the Sahara
3.Spice trails of the Desert Silk Roads and Maritime Silk Roads
4.Spice trails of the New World
PLATE 1. Clockwise, from top left: annatto, cardamom, melegueta pepper (also known as grains of paradise), dried frankincense gum, star anise, long pepper, sumac, turmeric, fennel, and coriander. (Photos by Lia Tjandra.)
PLATE 2. Frankincense gum oozing from a tree trunk in the nejd of southern Oman. This fragrant resin, popular as a spice and incense, was one of the most coveted objects in the early global aromatics trade. (Photo by the author.)
PLATE 3. Yemeni spice trader. (iStockphoto.)
PLATE 4. Depiction of a camel caravan from the Middle Ages. (Color lithograph by J. Coin from L’Art arab d’après les monuments du Kaire, 1877. Art and Architecture Collection, Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs, New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations.)
PLATE 5. Muslim women in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, selling local and imported vegetables, fruits, and spices. (Photo by the author.)
PLATE 6. View of the facades of tombs cut from the rock cliff in Petra, Jordan, a Nabataean trade hub that once received tons of spices annually. (Courtesy Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2002698303.)
PLATE 7. Ships arriving for trade in the harbors of the South China Sea. (Photo by the author of an exhibit at the Quanzhou Maritime Museum.)
PLATE 8. Stand selling mole preparations from San Pedro Atocpan at the Flower Festival of San Angel, Mexico City, 2009. (Photo by Thelmadatter.)
PLATE 9. The “crafty” Arab is transformed into a taco vendor at a mobile food stand in the desert oasis of San Ignacio, Baja California Sur, Mexico. (Photo by the author.)
Introduction
The Origin of “Species”: Trading Spices to the Ends of the Earth
Perhaps my lifelong love of aromatics—from allspice to za’atar—served as the genesis of this reflective inquiry. But somewhere along the line, I realized that one could not truly love spices without conceding that their use is never politically, economically, or even culturally neutral. It is impossible to reflect on the significance of aromatics and their history without acknowledging that imperialism, cultural competition and collaboration, religious belief, and social status are embedded in every milligram of cardamom, cinnamon, or cumin.
And so, this book is less the story of any single spice or spice trader and more about the cultural, economic, and political factors that propelled spices across the face of the earth, depleting some species while causing others to proliferate. It is a multilayered narrative that is as much about alchemy as it is about chemistry, cultural history as it is about natural history, and culinary imperialism as it is about transcontinental and multicultural collaboration. In short, the history of the spice trade is an object lesson in how, step by step, globalization has developed and sealed off other formerly prevalent options for business and cross-cultural negotiation among the world’s diverse peoples.
If this story line occasionally strays away from the trajectory that particular incenses, gums, and culinary and medicinal herbs took as they traveled around the world, so be it, for I am ultimately trying to answer a series of much larger questions. When, where, how, and through whose hands did the process of