The plant that changed the world

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui


Salt.

Last I heard salt wasn't a plant nor a food stuff. Just a mineral used as a flavoring.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by Oerdin
Last I heard salt wasn't a plant nor a food stuff. Just a mineral used as a flavoring.

I'd consider that mineral as a 'foodstuff'.

[GePap]

Wichever grain was first domesticated and made possible an agricultural society wins, hands down. Pepper and peppers and opium and all the lot are meanignless without a settled agricultural society to have a cuisine, or the inclination and ability to do antyhing like waging wars or committing to conquest.

Thought, given that this birth of agriculture and society occured several times in various places, I think all those plants that first made this possible should stand together.

[GePap]

Originally posted by Oerdin


Last I heard salt wasn't a plant nor a food stuff. Just a mineral used as a flavoring.

Yes, salt if NOT a plant, so it does not count in this list. At the same time, Salt is a vital nutrient and certainly has been of primary importance worldwide.

Anyone with a salary should know this.

[Atahualpa]

Originally posted by Oerdin


This bunny is way cooler then that bunny.

that directly goes into my pictures.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by shawnmmcc
However, while the peppercorn may be the most used spice - something I'm not sure of, but I suspect you find it in more dishes than chilis - substitution wise chilis are more critical, IMHO. Without them there are more dishes I simply cannot cook properly than without peppercorns - by the way I actually use chilis in more dishes than pepercorns though I must admit it is very, very close.

Now it's interesting you say that- you'll find 'season with salt and pepper' in an awful lot of standard recipes in many different cuisines (I know, because I looked through several recipe books last night)- English, French, Italian, modern American and Australian, Moroccan, Spanish, German et cetera.


I suspect the success of the little peppercorn (once a precious, rare commodity- hence the phrase 'peppercorn rent' whose meaning now is the opposite of what it represented- now a staple of many different diets) is such that it is so commonplace it is simply overlooked- you'll find it all over Europe, from Iceland's cuisine to pepper flavoured vodka and masala tea in the East End's Bangla Town, to Italian sausages and German cured meats, to Spanish stews and French broths, Greek meze and Turkish kebabs.


Certainly, the interruption of the spice trade occasioned by the success of the Ottoman Turks meant that Europeans voyaged around Africa and into the Indian Ocean and ultimately to the New World. The peppercorn is also at least partly responsible for the spread of Buddhism and Hinduism throughout South East Asia and the Indonesian Archipelago, and later, for the success of Islam along the trading routes from Africa's East Coast up to Canton.


With regard to salt, the primacy of the Celts in Europe was down in part to their control of salt mines in Switzerland and Austria, and you'll find even today place names in France, Germany and Central Europe that owe their origins to Celtic names for salt- I remember seeing a map of Celtic settlements, and oppida and trade routes and the word for salt was prominent in all of them- /Al/-esia, for instance.

Also the Saharan salt routes were important to the peoples of North Africa both before and after Islam- and Islamic Berber Empires launched conquests of black West African kingdoms to possess their salt mines. However, having said that, pepper (and the other exotic spices, such as cloves and saffron and cardamom) were what drove Europeans to conquer and colonise in Asia and the New World.

[centrifuge]

Originally posted by shawnmmcc
- tobacco is nice but without it the world wouldn't be all that different

I tend to disagree with this. Unless you consider economic prosperity in the new world to be of little significance.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by centrifuge


I tend to disagree with this. Unless you consider economic prosperity in the new world to be of little significance.

It certainly played a part in the growth of the British Empire and in the war between the Union and the Confederacy. It was as I recall part of the slave trade triangle between the cities of the west coast of the British Isles and North and West Africa and the Caribbean and southern coast of North America.

[Dry]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
Pepper made the Europeans conquer the world. Name any other foodstuff that drove that level of conquest?

Food? Why only foodstuff?
Title of this thread is 'the plant that changed...'.
What about papyrus?
What about hemp?
Or wood? If conquest is a criteria, timber and oak allowed a certain level of conquest...

[pchang]

Originally posted by molly bloom



Hah!

What is a cruet set ? What are the two commonest condiments in the Western world ?


Which peppery spice finds its way into masala tea, coffee, and has been in Indian and Chinese and South Asian cuisine since before the chilli was brought over from the New World ?


All bow to the green, the black the pink and the white- peppercorns peppercorns, rah rah rah....

Always a pleasure, shawn...

The pink is not really a peppercorn.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by pchang


The pink is not really a peppercorn.

I know, but I like Szechuan cooking, and it adds colour.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by pchang


The pink is not really a peppercorn.

I hate the taste of cardomom.

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara


I hate the taste of cardomom.

Poor you. I'll have your share, as I love it- everything from gajjar halva to Turkish coffee to masala tea and Moghul and Iranian curries.


Yum yum.

[chequita guevara]

You're welcome to it.