History of Condiments II

Back to finish our cool condiment history series. I’ve promised to talk about Portugal and Hungarian chili and I will keep my word. By the way if you missed the first part you can find it here .
In the Middle Ages condiments became so notorious and powerful that counterfeit started. If we think about counterfeiting like something representative for our era than we should think again. So merchandisers started to cheat with imitated condiments because of their huge profit potential and also because of a fast growing marketplace. And it’s not that this was ignored by authorities, on the contrary – but who saw first the money and not the consequences didn’t care too much just when was too late. False marketers were even burnt alive with their counterfeited goods so the risk was high.
We talked about the rutes between Asia and Europe which was growing constantly and in this period Mongolia was a real power having control on China. But when this control was lost during Ming dynasty, the traditional connections between Europe and China were lost. In case of need the merchants changed their targets to Beirut, Tripoli and Alexandria. Europeans became more and more adventurous with their daily progress in navigation so they arrived through Gibraltar to Portugal, north of Spain and France. Later on also to London, Bruges and Antwerp. All this areas become over night big centers for condiments.

So what did Portugal in all this already competitive world ?

Took the challenge and navigated in different direction, like South going to Africa, where the portugals found the exotic African condiments which they imported for the first time to Europeans. And more after Vasco the Gama, the famous portuguese navigator, returned from India in 1499 full of goods (condiments of course) the Italian and especially Venice power was officially destroyed . Since that day all the prices of condiments in Europe were determined in Lisbon. The most popular imported condiments were: pepper, cinnamon, ginger, clove and nutmeg. The cinnamon imported from Ceylon (today known Sri Lanka) could finance all their expeditions and Portugal set up a monopoly on the cinnamon.

Paprika and Hungary ?
Well, paprika was discovered by Spanish people. They couldn’t just sit back and see their neighbor success without actions. So they started to invest heavily in navigation for commerce purposes. Isabella I of Spain and King Ferdinand II gave to Christopher Columbus (known in South America like Cristobal Colon after being renamed by his Spanish fellows) 3 well equipped ships in order to find a maritime route to India through West. Columbus intended India but instead he discovered The New World – so even better for his later celebrity status. And of course America showed his generous reward by new cool condiments nowhere else discovered yet. Sure, after this Spain financed more developed expeditions to take advantage of this new treasure and bring it to Europeans. In the second expedition of Columbus a dutch company accompanied him, they came back with many new goods in 1494. Amazingly for them in the new world the red pepper had no fruits and vanilla was something completely new. Paprika and the chili plants just conquered Europeans. First paprika (the Spanish pepper) was considered more an exotic ornamental plant. Needed 100 years for things to change when Spain realized its other use and started to cultivate and export it. So paprika landed one day in Hungary where he found his roots and become "the national spice of Hungary".
Let’s see what more happened. Spain and Portugal realized that they can work well together and consolidate their super power so they’ve split the market: Spain managed the West and Portugal East. And Holland wanted also his part of the pie so extended hiw arms to the Extreme Orient, with good results.

Sad memories
The colonization and exploitation concerning natives in the new world brings shadow on the history of condiments. All this finally ended just when World War II ended in 1945.
Same with the Holland new monopoly on Moluce island which was taken from Portugal.

Portugal had in this islands the full monopoly on nutmegs and clove. Holland saw the opportunity and used this monopoly on Europe with 200 % profit returns. But they could grow the 2 trees just in 2 of the islands (Ambon and Banda) so they took fully advantage of that cutting all the other trees. Same way they behaved with locals, executing them for cultivating illegal trees on their own or stealing them. Later they became more tolerant though. Anyway they couldn’t prevent stealing completely since the French succeeded to stole a couple of shrubs of both kind and plant them in Madagascar, Mauritius and Reunion. So monopoly on them just died. After 10 years since this happened the Holland company declared bankruptcy with some English help when London became the most important center for condiments coming from Sri Lanka and India, using like main condiment – the cinnamon.

Weird thing happened during the 19th century
Condiments and aromatic herbs just lost their popularity suddenly without any good reason in Europe. Some of them were even completely forgotten. One of the explanation could be that people reached another level of appetite for new things and new tastes, so maybe they just became bored. This could explain the popularity of any relatively new products like: cacao, coffee, sugar. Between the veggies was installed the potato era and also rice, tomato and Brussels sprouts.

When condiments popularity came back ?
After World War II, when they changed their appearance being delivered in boxes and preserving bottles. This attracted the modern ladies of the house. And since journeys became an attractive habit of those who could afford it, the fascination for different kitchens and tastes become again a trendy must.

Cheers …

Cooking and recipes series – no title just read it !

It took me some time to choose my first article topic for my cooking series to be honest. But hey, this is such an amazing and big universe we start to dig in, so you can try to understand me. Cooking can became a real obsession if you start to create really good stuff, stimulates you more and more and when the feedbacks start to come like : “wooau, what an amazing cook you are !”;”did you do that ?”;”how did you do that?” – well than your adrenaline can grow higher thinking what you can do next. Not mention the satisfaction when you taste your own masterpiece.

I have to make a confession – I was always good in the kitchen but also hated to admit it, I even said I don’t like to cook or I have no idea about cooking. Even today I have my moments, but it’s not exactly true. Since my childhood I started to cook at home always improvising whit what I found in the house. First was a necessity, than a challenge, and after that a deep curiosity about what I can combine and create. Since then I collected on the way enough knowledge about what is good, what is healthy, what is really yammi and how to improvise almost anything.
For me it’s sure than life itself that home cooking is a real source to a healthy life and that cannot disappear like I heard some new tendencies about homes without any kitchens, which is totally crazy in my opinion. Would you buy a home like that ?
Especially now with so many fast food junk which starts to reveal its devil side. Oh I will write about that for sure a full article, I wanna see how big fan you will be after that. Ok, but even the restaurant food can’t compete as much as classy and high rated is. That’s because everything produced in bigger quantities looses the essence of a good food, and because to be competitive on the market you need to use a lot of ingredients which are full of additives but much cheaper. I can understand you buy this products also, but at least with some knowlidge you can allow to your home made food to be more selective and combine what it’s best for you. And sometimes you can even grow your own ingredients at home, garden or apartment. It’s all about decisions in life.
Well this introduction became maybe too long so I stop, but hey this happens if you start a new article series, right ?
I don’t keep you more – so here my decision to start with ingredients and in particular with condiments – since they are pure and hard to fake.
What would be a food without condiments ? Imagine your food without any salt, or your favorite cookie without sugar. And this are condiments, surely the most known ones. So you have now the picture.

Condiments give the flavour of the food, they feed our senses, make us happy,exited or delighted, they can be associated with feelings, moods or even body parts, organs being widely used fro treatments and cure many disseases. Can be used to make us younger, more beautifull like their use in cosmetics, and many more. We will develop of course the gastrononimcal meaning.
I see now that my article will be much longer than expected but after this introduction I can’t just let go of the history of condiments. Let’s do things right, ok ? You will see it’s not boring at all. We have plenty of time to take it slowly and develop everything is good to know about them.

Condiments and history:
It’s pretty hard to tell exactly the first moment when condiments entered in our lives, would be something like who was first the egg or the chicken ?
Anyway the first track about them targets Mexico, when the natives used chili in their foods in 7000 BC.
Then India became the focus of the commercial routes between China, Persia, Egypt and Mesopotamia in 5000 BC. Egypt revealed his secrets directly in its pyramids where were found tracks of nutmeg, anise, cassia, caraway, dill, saffron and fenugreek. In the Ancient Egypt slaves had the same luck to use condiments like the riches.
But here is the interesting thing: back than they didn’t considered condiments like something special for flavors or to delight their senses like today. Not at all – they used condiments like treatment for illnesses especially contagious ones, or to hide the bad test of an altered or too old food.

In 1500 BC appeared The Ebers Papirus (from Egypt) which was full of medical formulas based on condiments. Today you can find this at Leipzig in the University Library. Here you find 700 different species with their benefits.
For example:
Onion and garlic were equal to natural antibiotics.
Radish – was used for chest problems.

Than came Greece and Hippocraties (460-370 BC) and new descriptions about herbs appear which will be found in legitimate medical practices.

Ancient Rome will borrow the knowledge from the greeks developing though their own tastes regarding: dill, mustard, garlic, coriander, celery, bean tressel, thyme, parsley, poppy seeds.

The pepper will know its glory around Christ and will be used like currency, especially by romans.
After that condiments will be more and more known and appreciated due to more and more developed commercial routes around the world.
And later on, like for all the good things in the world wars start for herbs.

When the Arabic world gained the supremacy concerning any kind of goods Europeans formed crusades to gain their power. They traveled the world finding the precious ingredients to bring them in Europe. Marco Polo (1254-1324) was one of them searching for good ingredients, he returned in Venice after 24 years of journeys along the famous Silk Road or Silk Routes. Both arabs and veniceans made fortunes trading their goods back than. To see the real value of good ingredients that time imagine how a half kilogram of saffron was the equivalent of a horse, or ½ kg pepper had the same value like its weight in gold. So we can understand the power of ingredients became.

Condiments suddenly were considered not less than symbol of prosperity. Venice started its legendary golden era trading condiments, along with Genova and Pisa.

How portugueses enriched this landscape and Hungarians became known for their paprika ? All this in a new episode. I realize a blog article can’t be too long (although I’m used to other publication methods) so I let you digest this cool stuff first. Am I right when I say that history can be pretty cool stuff sometimes ?