The main component of tasty spicy food – spices – have always been a prominent element of people's daily life. Spice was mentioned in the ancient scripture like Bible and Indian Ramayana, often having a positive connotation, for example in the Song of Solomon, a biblical poem from Tanakh, a beloved girl was compared with different sorts of spices.
The healing power of hot spicy food was discovered thousands years ago. Thus the Ebers Papyrus, dating 1550 BC, is evidence of the usage of spice in medicine and describes various spice cures. Spicy food medical advantages, its ability for healing and prolonging life may have been even more appreciated than its gustatory properties. Being a strong aphrodisiac, spicy food seasoned with vanilla and ginger was also prescribed for those who were “weak in the sports of Venus”. Love for spicy food, or rather men's aspiration for the monopoly on spices, is responsible for many geographical discoveries of the Middle Ages, as well as for the so-called “Spice Wars” first between the Portugese and the Dutch, later between the Dutch and the English.
Spices played an important part both in life and in death: having strong preservative qualities, spices were used for embalming. Egyptian tombs of about 3000 BC prove that spices were applied also for their delicious fragrance, considered an integral part of divine service.
In different periods of the history the role of spicy food and spices changed. Thus, in contrast to the ancient Egyptian who used spice as a proper appanage of worship ceremony, the German of the 14th century applied it as currency, for example one pound of nutmeg was equal to seven fat oxen. One pound of the most common spicy food flavor – pepper – was enough to redeem a serf in France. As there was no international currency at that time, spices served to buy lands, to pay rent and fines. Spices were presented in all spheres of living, and today's world passion for spicy food has its deep historical roots. |