Seasoning - the heart of the dish and other worlds

Human lives in the Middle Ages were worth less than pepper - a spice found in almost every household today. You could get an entire estate for him and pay a dowry. Rich people in the Middle Ages were called "pepper sacks". Today, every recipe says: "Add pepper and salt as desired and to taste".

photo: Tadija Zlatković

About these economic ups and downs, about beauty, tastes and much more, the exhibition "Plant as Spice. In the realm of colors, smells and tastes", which is open in the Natural History Museum Gallery on Kalemegdan until June. The author of the exhibition, curator Dr. Uroš Buzurović, chose 39 spices from around the world and Serbia that today symbolize the "heart of the dish" and can enrich it, but also completely change the taste.

When we started using herbs is hard to pinpoint. Old writings say that ancient civilizations used them even before the Stone Age, only that it was not known then that spices could be obtained from them. Instead of flavoring food, they used them to preserve food from spoiling. They wrapped, for example, a caught animal in leaves of herbs in order to preserve its freshness and remove the unpleasant smell.

Records from Egypt dating back to the 20th century BC state that herbs were used not only for medicinal purposes, but also for embalming, purification, cooking, and making perfumes and soaps. In Europe, the Greeks were probably the first to use spices in the kitchen, and previously, like the Egyptians, they used them in fragrances and perfumes.

One of the oldest spices - cinnamon is mentioned as early as 2800 BC in the Bible. The ancient Egyptians used it in the embalming process, and in ancient Greece it was given to emperors and deities. Greek historical records state that the temple of Apollo in Miletus was filled with sweet-smelling cinnamon sticks. In the Middle Ages, during the Crusades, it was used as a drink to strengthen before going on campaigns. A little later, during the colonization of Portuguese sailors, it was discovered in Ceylon (today's Sri Lanka), where it was used as a medicine against fatigue, but also as a fragrant oil.

In ancient China, cloves were used during the preparation of food and medicine. His role was to "purify the breath". Anyone who wanted to meet the emperor had to chew cloves beforehand. In this country, sage was a symbol of immortality. It was said that a man who had sage in his garden could not grow old. It was used to improve mental abilities and to treat toothache, asthma and other diseases.

In Rome, sage was associated with the god Jupiter and used in rituals to attract positive energy and achieve a state of trance and ecstasy. In writings from the second half of the Middle Ages, sage is described as a medicine for both the poor and the rich. At that time, it was grown in monastery gardens and was used against inflammation of the gums and throat, insect and snake bites, for lowering temperature, hair care, teeth whitening and more.

Garlic was used against snake venom, stomach infections, coughs and malaise. In the time of Alexander the Great, it was consumed just before the battle because it was believed to "warm the soul", "stimulate the senses" and "protect against evil spirits". It was believed that garlic has a protective power, first of all, because of its sharp smell that can be felt even from a long distance. In our region, this herb occupies a place of honor. During the White Shrovetide, which is celebrated in the last week before the Easter fast, masked young men go from door to door wearing garlands of garlic around their necks, in order to drive away evil spirits from the homes.

Saffron, whose origins date back to Crete in the 1700s BC, was used in the Middle Ages as a disinfectant and analgesic for labor pains, skin and eye problems, and stomach cramps. Back then, only the well-to-do population could afford it - some used it as a narcotic. Growers pick it exclusively by hand, and in order to get half a kilogram of this spice, it is sometimes necessary to pick about 70 thousand flowers.

Right after saffron, vanilla is one of the most expensive spices in the world, not only because of its rich aroma, but also because of its healing properties. It was once used as an aphrodisiac, to relieve flu symptoms, against insomnia, to boost immunity and as an antidote to insect bites.

Nutmeg, which dates back to the 1st century AD, was also used as an aphrodisiac and was traded by the Arabs. During plague epidemics it was used for disinfection.

The Romans traveled from Egypt to India to get pepper, cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg. This demand for spices led to the first international trade routes and shaped the economy of the world. "The most powerful nation economically, but also politically, was the country that controlled the trade in spices," explains Buzurović.

The Middle Ages was, in a certain sense, "the age of the glorification of spices". Customers paid huge sums of money to Arab merchants, spices appeared in many recipes and richly seasoned food was eaten, and spices were part of inheritance in wills. Bieber was a kind of status symbol and almost equal in value to silver. Ginger and cinnamon were weighed on gold scales.

If it weren't for spices, Christopher Columbus might not have discovered America, and Vasco da Gama might not have discovered the sea route to India. On their way back to Europe, both sailors brought new spices that Europeans had never seen or tasted before.

Columbus intended to make a profit from the spice trade, so he headed for India and the Moluccas, which were still called the "Spice Islands". From the new continent (America), he managed to bring chili (hot pepper), pimento and vanilla to Spain, which later spread throughout the European continent. He was the first European to taste hot pepper.

Not long after, Vasco da Gama manages to find a sea route from Europe (Portugal) via the Cape of Good Hope to Calicut in India and thus establish a direct spice trade from east to west. In Calicut, which was the most important trading center of southern India, they were met by the Zamorin ruler, but the meeting with him ended badly. The ruler was not satisfied with the cheap gifts and trade goods that Da Gama brought him from Portugal, so Da Gama had to quickly return to Portugal. And yet he managed to bring pepper, cinnamon and ginger.

Thanks to the adventurer and conquistador Hernán Cortés, who conquered the Aztecs in the territory of present-day Mexico, vanilla and chocolate arrived in Europe around 1500. Vanilla was used exclusively as an addition to chocolate until the 17th century when apothecary Hugh Morgan in the service of Queen Elizabeth I of England created special vanilla-flavored sweets.

During the craze for spices for show of power in the 16th and 17th centuries, the Moluccas were colonies of the Portuguese, British and Dutch who built a system of spice plantations to gain dominance in that production. Sometimes they artificially created their shortage in order to raise prices. They destroyed plants like cloves by throwing their buds into the sea and punished anyone who grew them.

It is said that the story of spices is impossible to tell, that it is endless, so its end usually imposes the space reserved for it in the newspaper. Also, it is said that it is enough to know only one thing about spices: if it were not for them, if people did not want to reach for them in order to grow them and get rich, neither the American continent nor many other parts of the world would have been discovered.