The History of the Spice Trade : 3 : Wars and new Spice Monopolies : America enters the Spice Trade : Modern Spice Trading :
Wars and new Spice Monopolies
Portugal remained dominant in the Far Eastern spice lands until the end of the 16th Century, when the Dutch entered the competition in earnest. Van Houtman and Van Neck, each in command of expeditions to the Indies, made friends with native sultans, and organized trading posts which eventually gave their country a monopoly in the early 17th Century. With the Dutch conquest of Malacca in 1641 the Malay Peninsula and northern Sumatra canie under their control.
In 1650 they took over the cinnamon trade in Ceylon; in 1663 the best pepper ports of the Malabar Coast were theirs. Before the end of the 17th Century Macassar on the Island of Celebes and Bantam in Java were added to make the Dutch complete masters of the immensely profitable spice trade.
The Dutch ruled the market with a rod of iron. If the price of cinnamon fell too low in Amsterdam, they burned the spice. They soaked their nutmegs in milk of lime, a process which did not affect flavor, but supposedly killed the germ of the nut. This was to prevent nutmegs from being planted elsewhere.
France's role in spice trading was generally a minor one, not backed by its government. French sea captains out of Dieppe had quietly made their way down along the coast of Africa by 1365, some 50 years before the Portuguese got there. They did not manage to create a rnonopoly as did the Arabs, Venetians, Genoese, Portuguese and later the Dutch, They did, however, help destroy the century-old Dutch spice monopoly when, in 1770, the French contrived to "kidnap" enough cloves, cinnamon and nutmeg plants from Dutch possessions to begin spice-growing in the French islands of Reunion, Mauritius and Seychelles in the Indian Ocean and in French Guiana on the north coast of South America.
Meanwhile, the great sea-faring English people were not idle. They, too, were looking for routes to the riches of the East. In 1527 British merchant Robert Thorne wrote to Henry VIII suggesting a search for the "Northwest passage" to India and the Indies: "The Spaniards hold the westward route, by the Straits of Magellan; the Portuguese the eastward, by the Cape of Good Hope. The English have left to them but one way to discover- and that is by the North." These attempts led them to important discoveries in North America, but not to the lands of spices. Yet, navigators such as Lancaster, Cabot, Cavendish, Raleigh, Drake and the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588, made England a power at sea. In 1600 the British East India Company was chartered by Queen Elizabeth, with spice cargoes as its big objective. Where the Dutch controlled the East Indies, the English were gaining supremacy on the mainland of India itself. In 1780, the Dutch and the English fought a war, which was to be ruinously costly to the Dutch East India Company. In 1795 the English took Malacca and a year later all Dutch property and trading centers except Java. The Dutch East India Company had to be dissolved in 1799.
America enters the Spice Trade
On June 23, 1672, the first colonial American took an active part in spice-trading: Boston-born Elihu Yale - later to give his money and name to the great university - arrived in Madras, India, as a clerk of the British East India Company. There he established contacts on which he built afortune in spices.
It was not until a century later that America entered the spice trade in a big way. Father of the American spice trade was a dashing Yankee sea captain named Jonathan Carnes. Sailing on one of the early American trading voyages out of Salem in 1778, he discovered places in the Orient, principally in Sumatra, where he could deal directly with the natives, thus circumventing the Dutch monopoly. He convinced the Peele family of Salem to back him and in 1795 made a voyage, which yielded 700% profit in spices.
This sent America into the spice competition so actively that between 1784 and 1873, about a thousand vessels made the 24,000 mile-long trip to Sumatra and back. In 1818, when the pepper trade was very brisk indeed, 35 vessels made the long and dangerous trip. It isn't at all surprising to learn that the pepper trade furnished a great part of the import duties collected in Salem (which at one point were enough to pay five per cent of expenses of the entire U.S. government).
Pirates finally put America out of the oriental trade.Merchant ships were raided and destroyed time and again. The idealistic young United States government decided it would be improper to back the spice trade with naval protection in foreign waters.
Modern Spice Trading
Throughout history, the country that has controlled the spice trade has been the richest and most powerful in the world. Although fortunately these aromatic plants are not so costly today as they once were the traditional rule follows.
In the 19th Century Great Britain's maritime prowess gradually established her as the leader of the spice trade, and London's Mincing Lane became the spice-trading center of the world. Since then dominance in this ancient trade has once again changed hands. The United States is now the prime figure in world spice buying and New York is its center.
"Record U.S. Spice Imports in 1983" announces the Foreign Agriculture Circular of the USDA for 1984. Some 385,000,000 pounds of 36 to 40 different spices, herbs and aromatic seeds were imported.
This makes the U.S. the world's largest importer and consumer of spices used to season food products. Every year we buy more spices, so that spice consumption has risen 126 percent since 1961 when we imported 170,698,000 pounds.
The zooming spice use is due to several factors: High-income levels, increasing population, a growing demand for "convenience" food items and changing consumer tastes. Also, the rising consumption of dietary foods has added to the demand, for a pinch of one spice or another can make them more palatable for the consumer. Food manufacturer and processors are learning to rely on distinctive spicing to make their products more flavorful than competitive brands.
Most of our spices are imported, but approximately 190,000,000 pounds of aromatic products are grown in the United States, with California the leader. Domestic spices include capsicum peppers, paprika; such herbs as basil, tarragon, mint, parsley, sage and marjoram and seeds such as mustard, dill, fennel and sesame. Dehydrated vegetable products-onions, garlic, chives, shallots, bell peppers, parsley and mixed vegetable flakes - account for a high percentage of our domestic poundage.
Imported spices enter the U.S. through the ports of both coasts, but by far the largest volume comes through New York. They usually arrive in the whole form. They are first inspected for cleanliness and must pass U.S. Food & Drug Administration and the American Spice Trade Association standards before they are allowed to clear the port. After that, they go to spice grinding plants where they are further inspected, cleaned, processed and packaged.
Various types of mills are used in spice grinding because of the wide variety of materials, which must be processed; i.e. leaves, seeds, bark, etc. By use of mechanical sifters the miller also regulates the fineness of the grind. Today, the spice industry also offers extractives of spices in which the essences are concentrated from the raw products. These are available in various forms to meet specific flavoring needs. Included are essential oils, oleoresins and compounds containing these plus natural spices and other ingredients.The History of the Spice Trade
Portugal remained dominant in the Far Eastern spice lands until the end of the 16th Century, when the Dutch entered the competition in earnest. Van Houtman and Van Neck, each in command of expeditions to the Indies, made friends with native sultans, and organized trading posts which eventually gave their country a monopoly in the early 17th Century. With the Dutch conquest of Malacca in 1641 the Malay Peninsula and northern Sumatra canie under their control.
In 1650 they took over the cinnamon trade in Ceylon; in 1663 the best pepper ports of the Malabar Coast were theirs. Before the end of the 17th Century Macassar on the Island of Celebes and Bantam in Java were added to make the Dutch complete masters of the immensely profitable spice trade.
The Dutch ruled the market with a rod of iron. If the price of cinnamon fell too low in Amsterdam, they burned the spice. They soaked their nutmegs in milk of lime, a process which did not affect flavor, but supposedly killed the germ of the nut. This was to prevent nutmegs from being planted elsewhere.
France's role in spice trading was generally a minor one, not backed by its government. French sea captains out of Dieppe had quietly made their way down along the coast of Africa by 1365, some 50 years before the Portuguese got there. They did not manage to create a rnonopoly as did the Arabs, Venetians, Genoese, Portuguese and later the Dutch, They did, however, help destroy the century-old Dutch spice monopoly when, in 1770, the French contrived to "kidnap" enough cloves, cinnamon and nutmeg plants from Dutch possessions to begin spice-growing in the French islands of Reunion, Mauritius and Seychelles in the Indian Ocean and in French Guiana on the north coast of South America.
Meanwhile, the great sea-faring English people were not idle. They, too, were looking for routes to the riches of the East. In 1527 British merchant Robert Thorne wrote to Henry VIII suggesting a search for the "Northwest passage" to India and the Indies: "The Spaniards hold the westward route, by the Straits of Magellan; the Portuguese the eastward, by the Cape of Good Hope. The English have left to them but one way to discover- and that is by the North." These attempts led them to important discoveries in North America, but not to the lands of spices. Yet, navigators such as Lancaster, Cabot, Cavendish, Raleigh, Drake and the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588, made England a power at sea. In 1600 the British East India Company was chartered by Queen Elizabeth, with spice cargoes as its big objective. Where the Dutch controlled the East Indies, the English were gaining supremacy on the mainland of India itself. In 1780, the Dutch and the English fought a war, which was to be ruinously costly to the Dutch East India Company. In 1795 the English took Malacca and a year later all Dutch property and trading centers except Java. The Dutch East India Company had to be dissolved in 1799.
America enters the Spice Trade
On June 23, 1672, the first colonial American took an active part in spice-trading: Boston-born Elihu Yale - later to give his money and name to the great university - arrived in Madras, India, as a clerk of the British East India Company. There he established contacts on which he built afortune in spices.
It was not until a century later that America entered the spice trade in a big way. Father of the American spice trade was a dashing Yankee sea captain named Jonathan Carnes. Sailing on one of the early American trading voyages out of Salem in 1778, he discovered places in the Orient, principally in Sumatra, where he could deal directly with the natives, thus circumventing the Dutch monopoly. He convinced the Peele family of Salem to back him and in 1795 made a voyage, which yielded 700% profit in spices.
This sent America into the spice competition so actively that between 1784 and 1873, about a thousand vessels made the 24,000 mile-long trip to Sumatra and back. In 1818, when the pepper trade was very brisk indeed, 35 vessels made the long and dangerous trip. It isn't at all surprising to learn that the pepper trade furnished a great part of the import duties collected in Salem (which at one point were enough to pay five per cent of expenses of the entire U.S. government).
Pirates finally put America out of the oriental trade.Merchant ships were raided and destroyed time and again. The idealistic young United States government decided it would be improper to back the spice trade with naval protection in foreign waters.
Modern Spice Trading
Throughout history, the country that has controlled the spice trade has been the richest and most powerful in the world. Although fortunately these aromatic plants are not so costly today as they once were the traditional rule follows.
In the 19th Century Great Britain's maritime prowess gradually established her as the leader of the spice trade, and London's Mincing Lane became the spice-trading center of the world. Since then dominance in this ancient trade has once again changed hands. The United States is now the prime figure in world spice buying and New York is its center.
"Record U.S. Spice Imports in 1983" announces the Foreign Agriculture Circular of the USDA for 1984. Some 385,000,000 pounds of 36 to 40 different spices, herbs and aromatic seeds were imported.
This makes the U.S. the world's largest importer and consumer of spices used to season food products. Every year we buy more spices, so that spice consumption has risen 126 percent since 1961 when we imported 170,698,000 pounds.
The zooming spice use is due to several factors: High-income levels, increasing population, a growing demand for "convenience" food items and changing consumer tastes. Also, the rising consumption of dietary foods has added to the demand, for a pinch of one spice or another can make them more palatable for the consumer. Food manufacturer and processors are learning to rely on distinctive spicing to make their products more flavorful than competitive brands.
Most of our spices are imported, but approximately 190,000,000 pounds of aromatic products are grown in the United States, with California the leader. Domestic spices include capsicum peppers, paprika; such herbs as basil, tarragon, mint, parsley, sage and marjoram and seeds such as mustard, dill, fennel and sesame. Dehydrated vegetable products-onions, garlic, chives, shallots, bell peppers, parsley and mixed vegetable flakes - account for a high percentage of our domestic poundage.
Imported spices enter the U.S. through the ports of both coasts, but by far the largest volume comes through New York. They usually arrive in the whole form. They are first inspected for cleanliness and must pass U.S. Food & Drug Administration and the American Spice Trade Association standards before they are allowed to clear the port. After that, they go to spice grinding plants where they are further inspected, cleaned, processed and packaged.
Various types of mills are used in spice grinding because of the wide variety of materials, which must be processed; i.e. leaves, seeds, bark, etc. By use of mechanical sifters the miller also regulates the fineness of the grind. Today, the spice industry also offers extractives of spices in which the essences are concentrated from the raw products. These are available in various forms to meet specific flavoring needs. Included are essential oils, oleoresins and compounds containing these plus natural spices and other ingredients.The History of the Spice Trade
posted by Dominique Beyens at 7:21 a.m.
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