Spices enhance (or mask) the flavor of prepared food, and might be made from seed, bark, root, leaf, blossom, or just about any other part of a plant. The “spice trade” developed across Southern Asia and the Middle East around 2000 BC when people discovered properly prepared cinnamon and pepper helped make spoiled food palatable. Within a few centuries, spice merchants ranged across the known world and linked East and West. Spices really were the “spice of life,” and demand for them has been insatiable ever since.
Spices enhance (or mask) the flavor of prepared food, and might be made from seed, bark, root, leaf, blossom, or just about any other part of a plant. The “spice trade” developed across Southern Asia and the Middle East around 2000 BC when people discovered properly prepared cinnamon and pepper helped make spoiled food palatable. Within a few centuries, spice merchants ranged across the known world and linked East and West. Spices really were the “spice of life,” and demand for them has been insatiable ever since.