The Darker Side of the Spice Cabinet

October is the season of screams, spooky stories, things that go bump in the night. But some of the best dark stories aren't hiding in haunted houses or old graveyards. They're sitting right in your spice cabinet.

The Darker Side of the Spice Cabinet

October is the season of screams, spooky stories, things that go bump in the night, and an impressive amount of candy disappearing under suspicious circumstances. But some of the best dark stories aren't hiding in haunted houses or old graveyards. They're sitting right in your spice cabinet.

Those innocent jars of cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, pepper and saffron have pasts filled with secrets, fortunes, dangerous voyages, smuggling, ruthless competition and even bloodshed. Some were once worth staggering amounts of money. Others were guarded so closely that their origins were deliberately kept secret. Entire nations competed for control of the places where they grew.

In this little trip through the darker side of spice history, we'll uncover why people once fought over nutmeg, how cinnamon traders kept their source secret, why saffron has been faked for centuries, what made black pepper a luxury, and which beautiful spice has a poisonous lookalike. We'll also clear up a few persistent food myths and share some ideas for using these storied spices in your own kitchen.

So, in the spirit of October, let's look somewhere you probably never thought to search for a good spooky story: the spice cabinet. Trust us, the nutmeg has some explaining to do.

Nutmeg: A Little Spice With a Dark Past

Nutmeg seems innocent enough. We grate it into eggnog, custards, pumpkin pie, French toast, cream sauces and mashed potatoes. A few hundred years ago, however, this familiar baking spice was valuable enough to help fuel a brutal struggle for control of its trade.

Nutmeg comes from the seed of Myristica fragrans, a tropical evergreen tree native to Indonesia's Banda Islands. For centuries, this tiny group of islands was the world's primary source of nutmeg, which made control of the crop extremely valuable.

Europeans wanted nutmeg for cooking, fragrance and medicine. During outbreaks of plague, some people even believed nutmeg might offer protection from the disease. It did not, but the belief contributed to an already strong demand.

By the seventeenth century, European powers were competing aggressively for control of the spice trade. The Dutch East India Company sought a monopoly over nutmeg production in the Banda Islands. Dutch colonial campaigns against the Bandanese people resulted in killings, forced displacement, enslavement and seizure of their land.

Nutmeg even has a surprising connection to Manhattan. England controlled the small Banda island of Run, while the Dutch had established New Amsterdam in North America. The Treaty of Breda in 1667 settled a much larger conflict between the two countries. Among its results, the Dutch retained control of Run while the English kept New Netherland, including what became New York.

It is quite a history for something we casually grate over holiday eggnog.

Mace: Nutmeg's Forgotten Companion

Nutmeg also gives us another spice that does not receive nearly as much attention today.

When the fruit of the nutmeg tree ripens, it splits open to reveal the nutmeg seed surrounded by a beautiful red, lacy covering called an aril. That covering is removed and dried to produce mace.

Although mace and nutmeg come from the same fruit, their flavors are slightly different. Mace is generally more delicate and aromatic, with warm, slightly peppery notes. It was once a highly prized spice in its own right, although many American home cooks rarely use it today.

Mace works beautifully in baked goods, custards, cream sauces, soups, potatoes and sausage. It is especially useful when you want some of nutmeg's warmth without quite as much sweetness. If you enjoy experimenting with less familiar spices, mace deserves another look.

Cloves: Tiny Buds Worth a Fortune

Cloves are another spice with a surprisingly dramatic past. Those small, dark brown pieces are actually unopened flower buds from Syzygium aromaticum, an evergreen tree native to Indonesia's Maluku Islands, historically known as the Spice Islands.

Cloves were traded throughout Asia and the Middle East long before European merchants became involved. Their intense aroma, concentrated flavor and limited geographic availability made them exceptionally valuable.

European colonial powers eventually competed for control of the clove trade. The Dutch gained control over much of the production and attempted to restrict cultivation to areas they controlled. Clove trees growing outside approved regions were destroyed in an effort to limit supply and protect the monopoly.

Eventually, clove cultivation spread beyond the region to places such as Zanzibar and Madagascar, making the spice more widely available.

Today cloves are so familiar that it is easy to overlook how unusual they really are. Their strong flavor works in gingerbread, spice cakes, baked ham, mulled cider, chai, poached fruit and savory dishes. Whole cloves are also used to stud oranges for traditional holiday pomanders.

Fortunately, no international monopoly is required to make gingerbread anymore.

Cinnamon: A Closely Guarded Secret

Few spices are as closely associated with comfort as cinnamon. It is the familiar scent of apple pie, cinnamon rolls, baked apples, French toast and countless holiday recipes.

For centuries, however, many of the people buying cinnamon had very little idea where it actually came from.

Cinnamon had been moving through ancient trade routes for thousands of years, and merchants benefited from keeping its origins mysterious. Ancient writers recorded elaborate stories about cinnamon coming from dangerous and nearly inaccessible places. One famous tale involved enormous birds collecting cinnamon sticks and using them to build nests high on cliffs.

Whether everyone believed these stories is another matter, but mystery was certainly useful in maintaining the value of a rare imported commodity.

Eventually European traders learned more about cinnamon's origins. Sri Lanka, historically known as Ceylon, became particularly famous for the cinnamon now known as Ceylon cinnamon. Competition for control of the cinnamon trade followed, with Portuguese, Dutch and British colonial powers dominating Sri Lanka at different periods.

Today, shoppers generally encounter Ceylon cinnamon and several varieties commonly grouped under the name cassia. Ceylon cinnamon tends to have a lighter, more delicate and subtly sweet character, while cassia varieties usually offer the stronger cinnamon flavor familiar in American baking.

The mystery may be gone, but cinnamon remains one of the most useful spices in the kitchen.

Black Pepper: When an Everyday Spice Was a Luxury

Black pepper is so common today that it is difficult to imagine it as a luxury. It sits next to salt on restaurant tables, gets ground over eggs and salads, and appears in countless recipes without much thought.

For centuries, it was one of the world's most important traded spices.

Black pepper comes from Piper nigrum, a flowering vine native to South India. It traveled through ancient trade networks connecting India with the Middle East, North Africa and Europe. The Romans were particularly fond of pepper, and it appears frequently in surviving Roman recipes.

Pepper remained valuable throughout medieval Europe and became an important international commodity. European demand for pepper and other Asian spices later contributed to efforts to establish direct maritime trade routes to their sources.

There is also a stubborn myth that medieval Europeans used expensive spices to cover the flavor of spoiled meat. It makes for a colorful story, but it does not make much economic sense. Imported spices were costly luxury goods, and people already knew how to preserve food through salting, smoking, drying and fermentation.

They seasoned food with pepper for much the same reason we do today. It tasted good.

Good black pepper still deserves more attention than we sometimes give it. Depending on its variety and origin, pepper can offer fruity, floral, citrusy, earthy or sharp notes. Freshly ground peppercorns can change the character of a dish in seconds.

Saffron: Expensive Then, Expensive Now

Many spices that were once considered luxuries eventually became affordable everyday ingredients. Saffron is one notable exception.

Its high price has less to do with mystery than with the extraordinary amount of work required to produce it.

Saffron comes from the red stigmas of the Crocus sativus flower. Each flower produces only three of these delicate threads, which are carefully harvested. Producing even a relatively small quantity of saffron requires a tremendous number of flowers and a great deal of labor.

Its value has also made saffron a target for fraud for centuries. Less expensive plant material, dyed fibers and other substances have been substituted for saffron or mixed with genuine threads to increase weight. Adulterated saffron remains a concern today, which is one reason purchasing it from a reputable source matters.

Genuine saffron has a distinctive flavor that is floral, earthy, slightly bitter and difficult to imitate. It is used in dishes such as paella, risotto, rice, soups, sauces, breads and desserts.

The good news is that a little goes a long way. When used properly, a small package can flavor many dishes, making the cost per recipe much less intimidating than the price of the package might suggest.

Star Anise: Beautiful With a Dangerous Relative

Few spices look more appropriate for October than star anise. Its woody, star shaped pods are beautiful enough for fall decorations, but their strong licorice flavor makes them far more useful in the kitchen.

Star anise comes from Illicium verum, an evergreen tree native to parts of China and Southeast Asia. Its characteristic flavor comes largely from anethole, the aromatic compound responsible for the familiar licorice quality.

Despite the similar names and flavors, star anise and anise seed are not the same spice and come from completely different plants.

Star anise is widely used in Chinese and Southeast Asian cooking and is a familiar ingredient in Chinese five spice. It can also add wonderful flavor to braised meats, broths, poached pears, mulled beverages, syrups and baked goods.

There is one genuinely dark detail hiding behind its attractive appearance. Chinese star anise has a close relative called Japanese star anise, Illicium anisatum, which is toxic and not suitable for culinary use.

This is one of many examples of why knowing where spices come from and purchasing them through reputable suppliers matters.

Juniper Berries: Not Really Berries at All

Juniper berries bring another interesting character to our October spice cabinet. Despite their name, they are not technically berries. They are fleshy seed cones produced by certain species of juniper.

Their aroma is unmistakably piney, resinous, citrusy and slightly bitter. Anyone familiar with gin will probably recognize the scent immediately because juniper is the defining botanical associated with it.

Juniper's culinary history goes back much further. It has long been used in European cooking, particularly with game, pork, cabbage, sauerkraut, marinades and slow cooked dishes. Its sharp, woodsy character works especially well with rich foods.

Like many aromatic plants, juniper also gathered centuries of folklore. Different cultures associated it with protection, purification and traditional medicine. Those historical beliefs are interesting to study, although they should not be confused with modern medical guidance.

For the curious cook, juniper is worth experiencing simply for its aroma. Crush a berry between your fingers and it smells remarkably like an evergreen forest.

When the Spice Cabinet Was Also the Medicine Cabinet

For much of history, the boundaries between food, medicine and folklore were far less defined than they are today. Spices and herbs were used not only for cooking but also in perfumes, incense, religious ceremonies and traditional remedies.

People carried certain spices for protection, burned others to cleanse the air and mixed still others into preparations intended to treat disease. Some practices eventually became subjects of modern scientific research, while others remained firmly in the world of folklore.

These old beliefs are part of what makes spice history so interesting, but historical use does not automatically equal proven medical benefit. We are perfectly happy letting spices do the job they have been doing exceptionally well for thousands of years: making food taste wonderful.

Your Spice Cabinet Is a Tiny Museum

Perhaps the most remarkable thing about spice history is how ordinary all of this seems to us today.

Open the average spice cabinet and you may find pepper from India, cinnamon from Sri Lanka, cloves from Madagascar, saffron from the Middle East, star anise from Asia and herbs from the Mediterranean sitting within inches of one another.

For much of human history, having access to ingredients from so many distant places would have represented extraordinary wealth and privilege.

These spices crossed deserts in caravans and traveled thousands of miles aboard ships. Merchants guarded their sources, governments taxed them, and empires competed for control of the regions where they grew.

There is also a darker part of this history that should not be overlooked. The spice trade became deeply connected with colonial conquest, forced labor, slavery and the displacement of local populations. Our fascination with the romance of the old spice routes should leave room for the people who paid a very real price for European competition over these valuable commodities.

Food history is human history, and human history is rarely neat.

A Little History With Dinner

Thankfully, buying spices today is considerably less dramatic. We can grind black pepper over roasted vegetables, grate nutmeg into eggnog, add cloves to mulled cider and sprinkle cinnamon over oatmeal without crossing an ocean or negotiating with an empire.

Easy access, however, does not make these ingredients any less remarkable.

At The Spice & Tea Shoppe, part of what we love about spices is that every one has a story. Each begins with a plant grown somewhere in the world and carries with it generations of culinary traditions, trade and human history.

The next time you reach into your spice cabinet, take a moment to think about how extraordinary that little collection really is. Ingredients that once traveled for months and commanded fortunes are now waiting patiently for tonight's dinner, tomorrow morning's tea or the next batch of cookies.

This October, there is no need to look very far for a good dark story. Some of the most interesting ones have been hiding in your kitchen all along.