Episode 38 Spice - Worth Taking over the World

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Listen to "038 Spice - Worth Taking Over the World" on Spreaker.

 Link to the Episode:
Episode 38 Spice - Worth Taking over the World


I knew that Frank Hebert had clearly been reading Earth History when he came up with the Dune book.  What I didn't realize was how closely the shenanigans, chicanery and straight-up slavery that existed around the trade of Cloves, Mace and Nutmeg were mapped onto his story.

Even down to The Very Best People using cloves and nutmeg as drugs for painkilling, hallucinations and purportedly longer life.  Oh yeah, and going to war over Spice profits.  That too.  


Cloves:

Franz Eugen Köhler, Köhler's Medizinal-Pflanzen, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons



Nutmeg:

On the tree - looks like plums.  The flesh is an opaque white.  Candied, pickled and juiced locally - nutmeg fruit flesh doesn't have much market beyond its fresh, local use.
 
By Joe Ravi, CC BY-SA 3.0

The nutmeg aril - while still on the seed coat.  removed dried and broken into "blades" was the 17th C way it was sold.  The modern version is almost always sold ground.

By AntanO - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0

Familiar ground nutmeg "nuts" are the kernel of the seed.  The solidness of the nutmeg requires that they be grated rather than pounded - so a nutmeg grater was required.


Zoom out of where the Malay Archipelago is:
(Also called "Malay World")


A 1950's map of the area.  The majority of the orange islands labeled "State of Indonesia" are now the Malukus.  There are about 25,000 islands in there - but not all are habitable.  But you can imagine how confusing this could get at water level with bad maps and no good way of measuring distance East to West... and limited ability North to South.   


Related Media:

Schivelbusch, Wolfgang (trans. David Jacobson) Tastes of Paradise: A Social History of Spices, Stimulants and Intoxicants. NY: Vintage Books, 1992 

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