The simple spices that the modern cook takes for granted have a long, enchanting and sometimes even bloody history to them. Even today's everyday ingredients, such as salt or pepper, have caused men to cross the oceans, countries to go to war and empires to fall.
Saffron
Currently one of the most expensive spices in the world, Saffron is actually the stigma of the Crocus flower.
Each stigma has to be manually extracted by hand and this results in the high prices that this rich yellow spice commands. The ancient Romans believed that sleeping on a pillow of saffron could cure a hangover.
Nutmeg
In the 1800's Nutmeg was indigenous to a single chain of islands in Indonesia.
So prized were these islands that the Dutch traded the then little known Island of Manhattan to the English, for just one of these famed Spice Islands.
Clove
The Dutch East India Company tried to destroy every clove tree with the exceptions of the ones controlled by them in an effort to create a monopoly on its production.
A single tree, named Afo, remained out of their control and the seedlings of this, the oldest living clove tree, proved to be their undoing as they were smuggled across the world.
Salt
Salt was such a prized commodity in ancient times that the ancient Greeks traded salt for slaves, giving rise to the common saying, “He is not worth his salt”.
In addition Ancient Rome paid her soldiers in a salt ration known as “salarium argentum” which gives rise to the modern English word “Salary”
Pepper
Pepper is known as the “King of Spices” and rightly so. In the 1800's it was worth its weight in gold and was often used as payment for anything from Rent to Ransom.
Such was its perceived value that when Attila the Hun laid siege to Rome he demanded payment in the form of 3000 pounds of pepper.
