Episode 38 Spice - Worth Taking over the World

-
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 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Episode 65 Pudding & Cream & Cake that is Not a Lie

-
Listen to "065 Cream & Pudding & Cake that is Not a Lie" on Spreaker. Link to the Episode:  Episode 65 Pudding & Cream & Cake that is Not a Lie 18th Century, pre-revolutionary cake was generally a heavy dense thing compared to our modern, airy baking powder assisted cakes.  The only leavening was yeast and eggs.  And sugar?  Expensive.  Cakes were definitely less sweet.  If you were not wealthy, or it wasn't a wedding, birth or a death,  molasses and maple syrup (more generally known as "maple molasses" in the 18th century) would stand in.  And these too would tend to make your cake more dense as well. It was also common for cakes to be only slightly sweetened and then studded with dried or sugared fruit - think fruit cake.  Either the dense bricky stuff of English descent - or the new Italian star of the modern American winter holiday scene, panettone 18th century cake American cakes were largely thick, moist things that were lightly sweetened.
Read more

Episode 61 - 18th Century North American Rice – A History

-
Image
Listen to "061 18th Century North American Rice - A History" on Spreaker.  Link to the Episode: Episode 61 Rice has Arrived & It is Boiled Rice comes to America at least three separate times.  The first time is in the end of the 17th and the start of the 18th century, when it becomes an economic force in South Carolina - and later Georgia. Unlike later rice, this rice is came most recently from Africa.  The export rice that will build family fortunes is an Oryza sativa  or Asian sourced variety, but it was a variety that was grown previously in Africa - by Africans.   But there was also Oryza glaberrima a rice of entirely African extraction.  Unlike the O. sativa  rice, it grows more like other cereal - simply in the dirt, instead of in rice paddies that must be transplanted, flooded and drained. Navigational Alchemy View the world like a compass and astrolabe only sailor.  As someone who recently felt proud of herself for being able to go a single kilometer without loo
Read more

Episode 64 Milk & Butter Money

-
Image
Listen to "064 Milk & Butter Money" on Spreaker. Link to the Episode: Episode 64 Milk & Butter Money The Dairy Maid arrives on the scene.  Unlike so many depictions of this or that type of colonial person or other, which tend to be overly idealized depictions, the representation of Dairy Maids is not too far off. She's going to be seen in a colonial dress (don't forget the cap or head wrap), and apron and carrying pails, hanging out with cows, or seated at a churn.  The main place they miss is giving her slim forearms and shoulders.  Between the milking,  the carrying and the churning, she would be a first pick for any arm-wrestling team.   Colonial Williamsburg did lots of the heavy lifting for me - and has excellent photographs of 18th century dairymaid dress , and the dairy out buildings - as well as longer explanations of how they functioned. Dairy House in Colonial Williamsburg Long eaves and slats - but no windows.  And a stone foundation. Dairy Cow and
Read more