THE VALUE OF SPICES

Roger Crowley explains how spices transformed the world and why they were such a valuable commodity

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Why were spices so valuable?

It's hard for us now to understand the lure of spices in history. As far back as 5,000 years ago their startling aromas, colours and tastes had a strong hold on the peoples of the past. They conjured up a sense of the exotic, provided glimpses of paradise, suggested potential cures for medical ailments, enriched dull food and inferred a portal to the divine. Because the sources of spices were mysterious and largely unknown, certainly within Europe, they filled a colourful space in the human imagination. Spices were both exotic and expensive because they passed through the hands of many merchants in the trading process. Analogous to the Silk Road, there was an ancient maritime spice route stretching from the Philippines to India, across the Indian Ocean to Arabia, Egypt and the Mediterranean. Spices were the original and ideal global commodity: lightweight, able to profitably fill a ship's hold, reasonably imperishable and high value. With each link in the maritime chain, the price went up, so that by the time pepper reached England the markup could be 1,000 percent. The fact that they were so expensive was, to an extent, a guarantee of their mysterious potency and a status symbol signifier of the end user.

What were some of the historical uses of spices?