The Spice of Life

« Oh! » exclaimed a friend when she heard I was going to Sri Lanka. “Will you bring me back some spices?” Spices? For me Sri Lanka meant tea. But gradually it all came back to me -- those seventh grade history lessons about the Spice Trade. I enjoyed learning history that year – stories of explorers, pirates, shipwrecks in exotic locations and international rivalry. But I was always puzzled about why all those men travelled long distances and put their lives in danger to bring cinnamon,pepper, nutmeg and vanilla to their waiting countrymen.
Later reading taught me that there the answer was a combination of business, power-grabbing, fashion and prestige – which must have seemed evident to my history teacher but wasn’t to my 12 year old self.
Europeans had been using spices long before the Middle Ages to spice food and preserve meat, as well as in perfume making, embalming, and the making of medicine. The spice trade was a monopoly of the Asian producers first and later of Muslim traders who controlled the route between Asia, where the spices grew, and Europe which wanted to buy them. They were sold for exorbitant prices which only the rich could afford. So, of course, the rich wanted them -- to prove they could afford them.
Finally, the Europeans decided to take matters into their own hands -- not to reduce the prices but to make the money themselves – first the Portuguese, then the Dutch and finally the English and French. All these nations, except the French, colonized Sri Lanka in turn between the 16th and the 20th century.
By the 19th century, refrigeration made the preserving function of spices less necessary and the prices dropped. But spices are still cultivated and sold. Sri Lanka produces 80% of the world’s cinnamon as well as cardamom, cloves, nutmeg and mace, black pepper, turmeric and vanilla.
Today I was going to a spice garden to see them.



The spice gardens tourists are taken to are commercial in nature. There are a few trees and bushes of each kind of spice.



The guide takes you around and makes you guess what the spices are and tells you their use in Ayurveda (traditional Sri Lankan and Indian medicine. I was pleased that I managed to guess most of those presented to me and surprised at how strong they smelled compared to their pale imitations sold in European and American supermarkets.
The final sales pitch was the one that pleased me most. I was taken here



and given a short lecture on the medicinal properties of various oils and balms I could buy there (everything from whitening your teeth to erectile dysfunction!). There are also Ayurvedic beauty products and, to illustrate their value, two young men gave me a wonderful massage. (No photo available) .My visit ended with the obligatory stop at the gift shop. I exited with cooking spices for myself and two friends, leaving the various oils and balms for others. For example, for the busload of French tourists that were arriving as I left. “They’ll get the lecture but I bet they won’t get the massage,” I smiled smugly to myself.