Customer Reviews

The Spice Route: A History (California Studies in Food and Culture)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

For over two millennium the Western world was obsessed with the spice products of the far east - specifically India, Sri Lanka and the islands of the Malaysian and Indonesian Archipelagos. Obsessed to the point that from the time of the Roman empire onwards Europe ran a constant trade deficit with these countries and with the Arab cultures who for much of the time acted as middlemen. This fine book from John Keay provides a history of this trade from the return of Alexander's soldiers from India bringing with them a taste for spices through to the largely unknown trade of Roman and Hellenistic sailors plying the route from the Red Sea to India and onto the Arabs and finally the Europeans sailing around Africa. In documenting this trade Keay's has provided the reader with a concise but encompassing history of a trade which shaped the world as we now know it.

But equally importantly this book invokes the romance inherent with this subject, leaving the reader to dreaming of sailing to places such as the Zanzibar, Malabar and Coromandel Coasts to trade for spices at the height of trade.

After completing this book, I would recommend an earlier book by John Keay, "The Honourable Company", which is a history of the British East Indian Company and provides more details on the European part of the trade.

If you've ever wondered about what exactly constitutes a spice, where most spices came from and why they were so valuable, then this book will give you a great overview. Did you know, for example, that mace and nutmeg come from the same plant? Or that salt (which is a mineral) is alone in adding intrinsic preservative value to food?

I found this book provided a perfect blend of the exotic, the heroic and the mundane. The story of the journeys which resulted in the discovery of spices, the desire for the rare and the risks associated with transportation make for fascinating reading. Long before a formal stock market existed, futures were made and lost in this precious trade. The spice trade is a fascinating juxtaposition of an historical process spanning three millennia, a geographic progression that encircles the world and a trade in commodities that have little intrinsic value.

So, if you have ever wondered about the stories behind those small packets or glass bottles containing those mysteriously named ingredients that so many of us use in our cooking, you may like to read this book.

Jennifer Cameron-Smith

Let me start by saying that I still haven't finished reading this book but I'm past the middle. Having said that here's my opinion.

I always wondered why spices were such a big deal in the past. I used to think it was because they were used in medicinal ways or as a mean to conserve food. I bought this book to answer my questions... and it did.
This book reveals the history of spices for millenia, explains us the different concepts of spices during that time, the real uses for them, their origin and, more important, talks about the civilizations that walked and sailed the earth after them.
It is a book as much about spices as it is about economic history. In fact, what interests me the most is this last part.

I was very excited when this book came out, having an interest in the history of the spice trade. Unfortuneately it is poorly written and organized, reading more like a doctoral dissertation than a book. The author might have followed a specific route. or a specific plant, or a historical timeline, but as far as I can tell it is just a mishmash of statements.
It would be much improved by a few maps - unless you know in your head most water routes and islands of the world.
His facts are also somewhat loose - he describes cubeb as a type of pepper - yes it is in the same genus and has a peppery taste, but so are such disparate plants as kava and betel.
And most importantly the love is missing. This doesn't read as a story by a person impassioned by places or plants or history - just an assortment of facts he found. He repeatedly talks about how spices are just for the rich to show off how rich they are - I would say a spice has much more intrinsic value, both as medicine, hygiene and food, than diamonds or other objects of value only for their scarcity.

Having an interest in Southeast Asia and its ancient (as well as its current) history, I was delighted to read a book that is not simply a rehash of European colonization. Think about Columbus, undertaking a dangerous and expensive sea journey -- for what? For the products of "the Indies" ... many of which were at that time called spices. The Europeans' conquests and massacres among the islands of South and Southeast Asia are recounted here in the context of the economics surrounding these valuable products of nature. Fortunes were made (and lost, when ships sank) and countless people from all around the world paid with their lives for the pursuit of this unique source of wealth.

But John Keays takes us back further in time, before the Europeans had mastered sea travel to the degree necessary for them to reach India, the Strait of Malacca and the kingdoms of what is today Indonesia. Arab, Indian and Chinese merchants and traders sailed among the rich islands long before anyone from Europe laid eyes upon those shores. The Bandas ... the Moluccas ... the ancient Greeks and Romans knew the products of these places but never knew the islands whence they came. Pirates (or people we call pirates today) contested those waters centuries ago. Incense and cinnamon -- Keays shows these to us in a new light.

Near the middle of the text, we begin the story of Europe's quest for spices with the journeys of Marco Polo. A subsequent chapter is devoted to China's forays to coasts and islands west of its own. The last chapters are the bloodiest, as the Portuguese, Spanish, English, and Dutch war with the local people of the islands and with one another to secure control of the valuable products. The barbarism of the European Christians staggers the mind.

The reviewer here who said this book reads like a dissertation seriously misrepresents it. I found the writing easy and natural, highly enjoyable (sometimes horrifying) -- and the information conveyed fascinated me from start to finish. Imagine: "In the early tenth century ... Chinese vessels began to put in occasional appearances in the Arabian Sea" (p. 103).

Illustrated, with 16 pages of good color plates and numerous very attractive outline maps.

It was dull and boring...more like an old history book than something I'd read for pleasure.