Dangerous Taste: Story of Spices - Softcover

Dalby, Andrew

Softcover

ISBN 10: 071412771X ISBN 13: 9780714127712

Publisher: British Museum Press, 2002

Synopsis

This text offers explores the way trade and the search for exotic spices are woven into human history. The author shows how each region became part of what is now a world-wide network of trade - with local consequences ranging from disaster to triumph.

About this title

About the Author

Andrew Dalby, a food historian and linguist, is the author of Siren Feasts: A history of food and gastronomy in Greece, Empire of Pleasures: Luxury and indulgence in the Roman world, a Dictionary of Languages and, with Sally Grainger, The Classical Cookbook. He has been awarded the Sophie Coe Prize in Food History, the Runciman Award, and the Guild of Food Writers Food Book of the Year 2001.

From the Back Cover

Spices and aromaticsthe powerful, pleasurable, sensual ingredients used in foods, drinks, scented oils, perfumes, cosmetics, and drugshave long been some of the most sought-after substances in the course of human history. In various forms, spices have served as appetizers, digestives, antiseptics, therapeutics, tonics, and aphrodisiacs. "Dangerous Tastes" explores the captivating history of spices and aromatics: the fascination that they have aroused in us, and the roads and seaways by which trade in spices has gradually grown. Andrew Dalby, who has gathered information from sources in many languages, explores each spice, interweaving its general history with the story of its discovery and various uses.
Dalby concentrates on traditional spices that are still part of world trade: cinnamon, cloves, ginger, pepper, saffron, and chili. He also discusses aromatics that are now little used in food but still belong to the spice trade and to traditional medicine: frankincense, myrrh, aloes-wood, balsam of Mecca. In addition, Dalby considers spices that were once important but that now are almost forgotten: long pepper, cubebs, grains of Paradise.
"Dangerous Tastes" relates how the Aztecs, who enjoyed drinking hot chocolate flavored with chili and vanilla, sometimes added annatto (a red dye) to the drink. This not only contributed to the flavor but colored the drinker's mouth red, a reminder that drinking cacao was, in Aztec thought, parallel with drinking blood. In the section on ambergris, Dalby tells how different cultures explained the origin of this substance: Arabs and Persians variously thought of it as solidified sea spray, a resin that sprung from the depths of the sea, or a fungus that grows on the sea bed as truffles grow on the roots of trees. Some Chinese believed it was the spittle of sleeping dragons. Dalby has assembled a wealth of absorbing information into a fertile human history that spreads outward with the expansion of human knowledge of spices worldwide."

Edition details

• Publisher: British Museum Press
• Publication date: 2002
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 071412771X
• ISBN 13: 9780714127712
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 212