Egyptians used a lot of spices for cooking and stuffed mummies
Burned cinnamon to hide stench
First recorded spice
Traded spice with India
Spice trade silk road
All roads go to fertile crescent
Arabs created a monopoly on the spice trade moving toward Europe
Arabs Kept Europeans in the dark about the source of spices brought from India
Created secrets and Myths
Might boil seeds so Europeans couldn’t grow it
Crusaders brought back new spices when they returned from battle which increased demand in Europe and had also developed a taste for spice increasing demand
Spice Obsessions
Only attainable by ruling class
Emblems of power, gifts of state, heirlooms, currency
Pepper: worth its weight in gold, used as currency
Plagued by counterfeiting
Dried juniper berries (added to extend pepper)
Spice Obsession Theories
Theory 1: Used spice as preservative (pepper)
Not much evidence (salt works fine, local spices, afford fresh meat)
Theory 2: Medicine
Theory 3: Medieval palate was dull
Theory 4: Trade Route Inflation
Middle man increase prices along silk road
End of Obsession (17th century)
Figure out you could grow spice
Markets were saturated
Moderate use of spice
New groups of flavoring: chili’s coffee tea sugar, chocolate
Pepper- Piper nigrum
Most important spice economically
America is the worlds largest importer
Woody, perennial (3 seasons or more), tropical climbing vine
No synchrony
Monsoon tropical forests of Malabar coats, SW India
Heat:
Alkaloid irritants: piperine
Inner core
Aroma:
From essential oil
Pericarp, outershell
Green pepper: comes from unripe berries (least hot)
Black pepper: fully grown and dried
White pepper: removed skin (hottest)
Cinnamon: Cinnamomum verum
Small evergreen tree in laurel family
(true Cinnamon Ceylon) Native to Sri Lanka light flavor, fine texture, little Coumarin
2 yr old branches cut and fermented for 24 hrs inner bark peeled and dried to form quills
Cassia (fake) evergreen native to India, Indonesia and Vietnam
Closely related, mostly US
Thicker bark, whole tree used
Heavy flavor, coarse texture, high coumarin
Coumarin: appetite suppressing
Medical/ research: antioxidant, antimicrobial, type II diabetes
Saffron: Crocus sativus
Iran major exporter, very expensive
Perennial bulb, 2 flowers per bulb, completely domesticated
3 stigmas, manual harvest
Egypt: Cleopatra, healers
Disappeared with Roman Empire but came back as plague remedy
Afghanistan: poppy vs. Saffron
Flowers
Pollination: the transfer of pollen from anther to stigma
Cross pollination: Chance (pollen in air or water), or animals
Mutualism, coevolution (trick or reward animals to pollenate)
Egyptians thought divine power, blue lotus
Ancient Greece: floral wreaths
Ancient Rome: Floralia festival
Christian: flowers where “pure” no sex
Theophrastus: date palms pollinated by hand, proved reproduction
Fall of roman empire, fall of flower, (great suspicion)
Gained popularity Europe 600 AD
Posies thought to ward off plague
Saint Thomas: plants have reproductive virtues
Linnaeus: taxonomic system based on flowers
Botanophilia
Victorian Age: women grew flowers
Sexual repression, low tolerance of crime, and strong social ethic
Grew orchids (“a massive man-made extinction event”)
Epiphytic plant: plant grow on another plant (non-parasitic)
Orchidmania
Biggest flowering plant family, highly evolved (very guarded against self-pollination), native species on every continent
Grow slowly (7 yrs to mature and flower), long lived
Catasetum orchid inspired Darwins early book
Ghost orchid
Tulipmania
Extreme heterozygote
First cultivated around turkey then moved to Holland
Tulip breaking potyvirus (suppressed anthocyanin) (weakened plant)
Spread by peach/potato aphid
Mutability, novelty, favored by royalty, bubonic plague era, scarcity/ demand
1635 shift, traded in future promissory notes
“Greater Fool Theory” (1637 crash)
Smell
1 0f 50 human genes in the human genome are devoted to smell
Olfaction: sense of smell, chemical molecules
Olfactory tract transmits signals to limbic system
To smell must have
Volatile: must easily evaporate
Water soluble
Lipid soluble
Essential oils is what makes plants smell (2nd ary plant metabolite)
Isolation of Essential Oils: heat effects the smell
Expression: simplest, squeezed out, citrus
Distillation: most used, boil, collect steam, condense to oil
Solvent extraction: delicate flowers, grind up, steep in chemicals, then evaporate
Effleurage: oldest method, plant material in fat, dissolve out fat
Synthetic molecule
Scent and Memory
Proustian Effect: smell linked to memories, takes you back
Scent marketing
Billboard smell: makes bold statement (popcorn)
Thematic smell: compliments décor (Christmas smell)
Ambient smell: cover foul odor
Signature smell
Sugar (refers to many groups of carbohydrates)
Monosaccharides: simple sugars, cant be broken down
Glucose: basic source of energy (produced photosynthesis)
Disaccharides: 2 monosacc. Are joined together and H2O removed
Glucose: can from starch (storage in plants) or glycogen (storage in animals)
Honey was the first sweetener used by humans
Sugarcane
Native to S/SE Asia, cultivated in India
Large tropical grass, stores sucrose in internodes
Stems crushed, boil sap, separate sugar crystals
US 150 lbs/ yr consumed
Arab traders brought to Mediterranean, sugar reached Europe after crusades, Columbus to Dominican Republic
Labor first from indigenous people and forced labor from Europe
Solve labor shortage imported slave
British dominant traders in slaves and sugar
Seen as unskilled and replaceable
Malnutrition and starvation
Triangle trade
Sugar, rum to Europe; guns, salt, iron to Africa; slaves to Caribbean
Sugar, molasses to America; rum to Africa, slaves to Car.
Why so brutal?
Very profitable, high demand, triangle trade
Occurred in isolation
“unskilled labor” abolitionists end in 1834
Chocolate
Cacao tree Theobroma cacao, native tropical S America,
Grows tall, hot climate, lots of rain, understory tree (shaded, damp)
Cauliflory: flowers from trunk or large branches
Each flower potential fruit, insect that pollinates only in understory
Olmec, Mayan, Aztec
Process
Fermentation: pulp liquefied, seeds briefly germinate (choc. Flavor)
Drying: lose weight, outer shell loosens
Roasting: refines flavor
Winnowing: removes outer shell
Cravings
Caffeine and theobromine (humans not very sensitive to )
Cannabinoid mimics
Phenethylamines: chemicals associated with love
Serotonin
Coffee
Coffea, understory tree, tropical evergreen, produc berries 3 yrs old
Coffee fruit (drupe) contains 2 coffee “bean”s
Center of origin Ethiopia highlands
Coffea Arabica: 1st cultivated, wimpy (lower caffeine and yield)
Coffea canephora (robusta): 2x caffeine, greater yield
Shade Grown (traditional) coffee
Originally understory trees
Diverse habitat
Minimal need for pesticides and fertilizers
Sun Grown Coffee
Monoculture system produced by clear cutting forest
Increased fertilizers; herbicides and insecticides
Increased soil erosion
Coffee berry borer, natural predator ants
Tea
Popularity: tea, coffee, beer
Camellia sinensis, evergreen tree/shrub
China tea, 1st discovered and cultivated, cool climate, lower yield, lighter flavor
Assam Tea, tree, less resistant to cold, high yields, brisk flavor
Center or origin: china
Oxidation=fermentation
Startch to sugar, tannins released
Polyphenols: Antioxidant properties
Catechines: 25% Concentrated in fresh, unbroken, unfermented
Tannins 50%: break leaves tannins released
Types
Tulsi tea: related to mint, not china tea
Medical/religious, India Hinduism
Black: withered, full fermentation, crushed, dries (usually assam tea) brick
Oolong: btw withered, short fermentation, rolled or ball form
Green Tea: little withering, dried, high polyphenols (china tea)
White tea: young leaves, no oxidation, higher catechins, healthyiest *
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