Spice

The History of a Temptation

Nonfiction, Food & Drink, Herbs & Spices, Food Writing, History, World History
Cover of the book Spice by Jack Turner, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
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Author: Jack Turner ISBN: 9780307491220
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group Publication: December 10, 2008
Imprint: Vintage Language: English
Author: Jack Turner
ISBN: 9780307491220
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Publication: December 10, 2008
Imprint: Vintage
Language: English

In this brilliant, engrossing work, Jack Turner explores an era—from ancient times through the Renaissance—when what we now consider common condiments were valued in gold and blood.

Spices made sour medieval wines palatable, camouflaged the smell of corpses, and served as wedding night aphrodisiacs. Indispensible for cooking, medicine, worship, and the arts of love, they were thought to have magical properties and were so valuable that they were often kept under lock and key. For some, spices represented Paradise, for others, the road to perdition, but they were potent symbols of wealth and power, and the wish to possess them drove explorers to circumnavigate the globe—and even to savagery.

Following spices across continents and through literature and mythology, Spice is a beguiling narrative about the surprisingly vast influence spices have had on human desire.

Includes eight pages of color photographs.

One of the Best Books of the Year: Discover Magazine, The Christian Science Monitor, *San Francisco Chronicle *

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

In this brilliant, engrossing work, Jack Turner explores an era—from ancient times through the Renaissance—when what we now consider common condiments were valued in gold and blood.

Spices made sour medieval wines palatable, camouflaged the smell of corpses, and served as wedding night aphrodisiacs. Indispensible for cooking, medicine, worship, and the arts of love, they were thought to have magical properties and were so valuable that they were often kept under lock and key. For some, spices represented Paradise, for others, the road to perdition, but they were potent symbols of wealth and power, and the wish to possess them drove explorers to circumnavigate the globe—and even to savagery.

Following spices across continents and through literature and mythology, Spice is a beguiling narrative about the surprisingly vast influence spices have had on human desire.

Includes eight pages of color photographs.

One of the Best Books of the Year: Discover Magazine, The Christian Science Monitor, *San Francisco Chronicle *

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