Cumin, Camels, and Caravans: A Spice Odyssey 9780520956957

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Cumin, Camels, and Caravans

C a lifor n i a St udies i n Food a n d Cult u r e Darra Goldstein, Editor

Cumin, Camels, and Caravans A Spice Odyssey

Gary Paul Nabhan

U ni v ersi t y of C alifor ni a Pr ess Berkeley  •   Los Angeles   •  London

University of California Press, one of the most distinguished university presses in the United States, enriches lives around the world by advancing scholarship in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. Its activities are supported by the UC Press Foundation and by philanthropic contributions from individuals and institutions. For more information, visit www.ucpress.edu. University of California Press Berkeley and Los Angeles, California University of California Press, Ltd. London, England © 2014 by Gary Paul Nabhan Compositor: BookMatters, Berkeley Indexer: Thérèse Shere Cartographer: Paul Mirocha Printer and binder: Maple Press Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Nabhan, Gary Paul.   Cumin, camels, and caravans : a spice odyssey / Gary Paul Nabhan.    pages  cm. —​(California studies in food and culture ; 45)   Includes bibliographical references and index.   isbn 978-​0-520-​26720-​6 (cloth : alk. paper) —​isbn 978-​0-520-​95695-​7 (e-book)   1. Spice trade.  2. Spice trade—​History.  I. Title. ​ II. Series: California studies in food and culture ; 45.   hd9210.a2n33 2014   382'.456645—​dc23 2013032714 Manufactured in the United States of America 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of ansi/niso z39.48–​1992 (r 2002) (Permanence of Paper).

To three mentors who showed me how the Old World and New World are deeply connected culturally: Agnese Haury, Juan Estevan Arellano, and Michael Bonine

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Contents

List of Illustrations List of Recipes List of Spice Boxes Introduction: The Origin of “Species”

ix xi xiii 1

1. Aromas Emanating from the Driest of Places

16

2. Caravans Leaving Arabia Felix

37

3. Uncovering Hidden Outposts in the Desert

60

4. Omanis Rocking the Cradle of Civilization

90

5. Mecca and the Migrations of Muslim and Jewish Traders

105

6. Merging the Spice Routes with the Silk Roads

133

7. The Flourishing of Cross-Cultural Collaboration in Iberia

161

8. The Crumbling of Convivencia and the Rise of Transnational Guilds

181

9. Building Bridges between Continents and Cultures

198

10. Navigating the Maritime Silk Roads from China to Africa

214

11. Vasco da Gama Mastering the Game of Globalization

231

12. Crossing the Drawbridge over the Eastern Ocean

243

Epilogue: Culinary Imperialism and Its Alternatives Acknowledgments Notes Index

270 277 279 293

Illustrations

Plates Following page 120 1. A selection of spices 2. Frankincense gum oozing from a tree trunk in the nejd of Southern Oman 3. A Yemeni spice trader 4. Depiction of a camel caravan from the Middle Ages 5. Muslim women in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, selling vegetables, fruits, and spices 6. The facades of tombs cut from the rock cliff in Petra, Jordan 7. Ships arriving for trade in the harbors of the South China Sea 8. A stand selling mole preparations at the Flower Festival of San Angel, Mexico City 9. An Arab transformed into a taco vendor at a mobile food stand in Baja California Sur

Figures 1. An Omani forester approaches a frankincense tree  / 28 2. The al-Balid ruins near Salalah, Oman  / 41 ix

x  |  Illustrations

3. A dhow near Lamu, Kenya  / 48 4. Bahla Fort in Oman  / 53 5. An oxen-driven water wheel being used for irrigation  / 56 6. Harira stews at Siwa Oasis in Egypt  / 70 7. A well in the Negev  / 76 8. Ruins of an ancient Omani trading center below the Jabal al-Akhdar plateau  / 92 9. Cloves spread out to dry in Zanzibar  / 104 10. Salman the Persian meeting merchants from the Quraysh tribe / 110 11. Merchants in Timbuktu  / 125 12. Symbols carved above doorways in the Jewish section of Essaouira, Morocco  / 132 13. Herbal Viagra in a market in Dushanbe, Tajikistan  / 138 14. A camel train in Mongolia  / 154 15. Francisco Pradilla Ortiz, The Capitulation of Granada, 1882 / 187 16. The eastern part of the Anping Bridge, China  / 201 17. Qingjing Mosque in Quanzhou, China  / 205 18. A three-masted junk  / 220 19. Vasco da Gama delivering the letter of King Manuel of Portugal to the samuthiri of Calicut  / 237 20. The processing of cacao pods in the West Indies  / 259

Maps 1. Spice trails of the Arabian Peninsula and Arabian Sea  / 33 2. Spice trails of the Sahara  / 58 3. Spice trails of the Desert Silk Roads and Maritime Silk Roads / 142 4. Spice trails of the New World  / 250

Recipes

The recipes in this book open a window onto the people and communities who made and still make these foods. Even the varied names of the dishes give some sense of the paths they have taken over the centuries. The recipes also record the cultural diffusion of spices as they pass from one place to another: a chicken mole that fuses elements of the Persian, Arabic, and Moorish kitchens; tharīd, a bread-and-broth soup from the Arabian Peninsula that gave rise to açorda soup in Portugal, gazpacho in Spain, and perhaps even sopa de tortilla in Mexico; and mansaf, one of the oldest recipes in the world, a Mesopotamian stew seasoned with a mix of cumin, turmeric, and cassia cinnamon, which is still being made today. Harira , Carne de Cordero en la Olla: Lamb and Garbanzo Bean Stew / 7 Marak Minj: Green Lentil Curry with Frankincense, Ginger, and Omani Spices  / 19 Dates Kneaded with Locusts and Spices  / 43 Nabātiyyāt: Nabataean Chicken, Pasta, and Garbanzo Bean Stew  / 81 Maqlay Samak: Fried Fish on a Bed of Coconut Rice  / 96 Tharīd , Gazpacho al-Andalus: Soup with Unleavened Bread  / 112 Oshi Plov: Persian-Tajik Rice Pilaf with Quince  / 135

xi

xii  |  Recipes

Berenjena con Acelguilla: Sephardic Eggplant with Swiss Chard  / 172 Sibāgh: Abbasid and Andalusian Dipping Sauce  / 189 Zalābiya , Shaqima , Buñuelos: Deep-Fried Cardamom-Spiced Fritters Soaked in Saffron Syrup  / 207 Dajaj Gdra bil-Lawz: Spiced Chicken in Almond Sauce  / 223 Pollo en Mole Verde de Pepita: Spiced Chicken in Green Pumpkin Seed Sauce / 266 Prehistoric Mansaf: Kid and Lamb Stew with Yogurt, Root Crops, and Herbs / 272

Spice Boxes

The spices profiled in this book embrace an eclectic assortment of herbs, incenses, gums, fruits, musks, and teas. Some are esoteric, such as frankincense and mastic, while others are familiar and beloved, like cumin and chocolate. Some might come as a surprise, since they are not widely thought of as spices, like pomegranate, caper, and Damascus rose. But what all of these have in common is that they were in high demand throughout history as flavorings, fragrances, and pharmaceuticals. Because many aromatics were specific to certain geographic areas, they had to be traded for rather than produced locally. These valuable commodities gave their names to the roads by which they were traded, which became collectively known as the Spice Routes. The spice profiles give an overview of the vernacular names, folk uses, medicinal applications, and local lore surrounding each of these global travelers. Mastic / 9 Frankincense / 26 Turmeric / 38 Cardamom / 54 Saffron / 62 Cassia cinnamon  / 65 Capers / 86

xiii

xiv  |  Spice Boxes

Sesame / 99 Cloves / 103 Damascus rose , Rose of Castile  / 116 Melegueta pepper , Grains of Paradise  / 126 Musk / 150 Ginger / 156 Pomegranate / 164 Sumac / 176 Anise / 178 Coriander , Cilantro  / 190 Star anise  / 203 Sichuan pepper  / 216 Tuocha pu-erh , Camel’s breath tea  / 228 Cumin / 234 Chile peppers  / 246 Annatto , Achiote  / 252 Allspice , Jamaica pepper  / 256 Vanilla / 260 Chocolate / 263

Introduction The Origin of “Species”: Trading Spices to the Ends of the Earth

Perhaps my lifelong love of aromatics—​from allspice to za’atar—​served as the genesis of this reflective inquiry. But somewhere along the line, I realized that one could not truly love spices without conceding that their use is never politically, economically, or even culturally neutral. It is impossible to reflect on the significance of aromatics and their history without acknowledging that imperialism, cultural competition and collaboration, religious belief, and social status are embedded in every milligram of cardamom, cinnamon, or cumin. And so, this book is less the story of any single spice or spice trader and more about the cultural, economic, and political factors that propelled spices across the face of the earth, depleting some species while causing others to proliferate. It is a multilayered narrative that is as much about alchemy as it is about chemistry, cultural history as it is about natural history, and culinary imperialism as it is about transcontinental and multicultural collaboration. In short, the history of the spice trade is an object lesson in how, step by step, globalization has developed and sealed off other formerly prevalent options for business and cross-cultural negotiation among the world’s diverse peoples. If this story line occasionally strays away from the trajectory that particular incenses, gums, and culinary and medicinal herbs took as they traveled around the world, so be it, for I am ultimately trying to answer a series of much larger questions. When, where, how, and through whose hands did the process of globalization begin? What have 1

2  |  Introduction

we gained and what have we lost by entering into this Faustian bargain? And finally, how has globalization irrevocably changed the human condition? How has that thirteen-letter word come to be perhaps the most pervasive expression of the current cultural tendency to trade a placebased existence for one that is essentially placeless? I was encouraged to ponder this issue after reading “The Dawn of the Homogenocene,” a fascinating essay by the deeply thoughtful environmental historian Charles C. Mann.1 Mann, like another fine contemporary writer, David Quammen, likes to use ecologist Gordon Orians’s term homogenocene, which refers to the present era in geological history, one in which the world’s biota has become blandly uniform in place after place due to “recent” biological and cultural invasions on every continent. In his essay, Mann suggests that the roots of globalization and homogenization can be traced back to 1493 and the Casa Almirante (Admiral’s House) of Cristóbal Colón (our Christopher Columbus) on the island of Hispaniola. Indeed, the initiation of the Columbian exchange of plants, animals, and microbes between the Old World and the New World was a benchmark in the onset of “ecological imperialism” that not only reshaped life in the Americas but on all other continents as well.2 It is a “rupturous” moment in history that I have elsewhere referred to as the Great Colónoscopy.3 Nevertheless, I believe that while Mann understands and writes eloquently of the socioeconomic and ecological processes associated with globalization, he has grossly erred in dating its onset. So has Felipe Fernández-Armesto in his lovely 1492: The Year Our World Began.4 It certainly did not emerge from humanity’s economic endeavors as late as 1493 CE, nor even as late as 1493 BCE. Depending on what we might use to date the earliest evidence of spice (or copper) trade occurring between regions or continents,5 Fernández-Armesto, Mann, and I would likely agree that the initial phases of the inexorable process that led toward ever more pervasive globalization occurred at least as early as thirty-five hundred years ago. I would argue that the same mentalities, skills, and economic drives that led to the colonization of the Americas were already well articulated by the time the inhabitants of the Middle East colonized regions of Africa, Asia, and southwestern Europe. After 1492, they simply extended their base of operations to two other continents, using many of the same entrepreneurial and political strategies employed first to capture transcontinental trade in spices from the New World and then to expand

Introduction  |  3

their hegemony over other arenas of economic activity. And although none of us would necessarily grant its “invention” to an Italian-born immigrant such as Christopher Columbus, I believe that we could agree that Semitic peoples such as Phoenicians, Nabataeans, Arabs, and Jews left legacies of navigation, geographical exploration, culinary imperialism, and globalization that clearly informed Columbus. For almost anyone who has lived on earth over the last four millennia, it is difficult to imagine a world without extra-local herbs, spices, incenses, infusions, and medicines next to our hearths or in our homes. It is as if their fragrances have always been wafting into the culturally constructed spaces where our saints and sinners, prophets and prodigal sons come together to be healed or to celebrate a communal meal. The aromas of leafy herbs, dried fruits, crushed seeds, ground roots, and droplets of tree gums lodge deeply in our memories. Although we have difficulty verbally describing what distinguishes one fragrance from another, the most memorable of them nevertheless insinuate themselves into the holiest of oral histories and the most sacred of ancient scriptures we have shared as a species. The words species and spices come from the same roots in Latin, spec (singular) and species (plural), which referred to kinds, forms, or appearances of items within a larger assortment. But according to etymologist Walter W. Skeat, by the time Middle English was in use, spis, spyses, or species more particularly denoted different kinds of aromatic plants or drugs in trade.6 Following Skeat, our current usage of the Modern English term species seems to have evolved out of the need to speak collectively of cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, and saffron, and then to be able to distinguish among them as distinctive aromatics; only later was this sense of species extended to other non-aromatic plants and to animals. Thus, the origin of species as a construct within English may very well be rooted in the economic or aesthetic need to discern various kinds of spices from one another. Spices and our own species have certainly traveled together and shaped one another as far back as our surviving mythic narratives reach. In the Hebrew scriptures, a Jew named Joseph is sold off to a caravan carrying spices out of Palestine into the ancient Egyptian cities along the Nile. In the Christian scriptures, in the part known as the godspel among Christian speakers of Old English, we hear the “good news” that three traders of incense came from the East to encounter another Joseph, his young wife, Mary, and their newborn baby, Yeshu, one winter night when the stars were bright. In the Qur’an, we learn that before receiving

4  |  Introduction

his call to be the Prophet, Muhammad assisted his uncle Abu Talib and his own first wife, Khadijah, with their spice caravans, riding dromedaries from Mecca to Damascus and Aleppo. They became used to guarding from pirates and competitors their camel-hair bags burgeoning with herbs, dates, frankincense, and other exotic aromatics long enough to sell them for higher prices when they envisioned that such opportunities would soon emerge, leading to our current practice of speculation. A spice speculator was considered a visionary, someone who could anticipate when a new story (or market) was emerging and help to shape it. Whenever I hear such stories, I come away from them sensing that these visionaries on their spice odysseys were also quite worldly, for they navigated through tangible perils as they crossed barren deserts, wartorn borders, and tumultuous seas. Their stories inevitably retain meaning for us today, for they reveal some of the earliest recorded efforts to race into “undiscovered” or contested space, to globalize trade, and to forge new fusion cultures and cuisines. Despite the relevance these tales hold for us, we have been left with little understanding of what it was like to make one’s living trading spices on a daily basis. We have only a few fragments, like those from the eleventh century found among the sacred trash of Arabized Jews in the Cairo Geniza,7 which give us a fleeting glimpse into the lives of the tajir, or “big-time merchants,” who reshaped life in the Mediterranean basin. I myself have briefly made a meager portion of my living hauling wild chiles and Mexican oregano across the United States–​Mexico border, but until recently, I had seldom thought much of my own activity as a trader in relation to the lifelong (and sometimes multigenerational) commitment made by most spice traders. Is cross-cultural trade in aromatics a rarified and inherently risky activity fitting for only a few overly adventurous polyglots? Did most spice traders have the moneythirsty mindset of Marco Polo’s father Niccolò and uncle Maffeo, who left their families for years on end in order to profit from exotic treasures from distant lands? Or were some of these pilgrims spiritually motivated, like those mysterious Magi who allegedly followed stars from one place to the next in search of a new voice on earth? In most cases, the lens through which we view the historic spice trade has long been obscured by romance and fogged by clichés. Each of us may recall when we first saw those nineteenth-century lithographs or Persian rug designs with scenes depicting merchants arriving at caravansaries within the fortified gates of port towns. There, they would ceremoniously dismount from their dromedaries, which had carried vast

Introduction  |  5

quantities of aromatic cargo into souks nearby. Those marketplaces would be crowded with buyers and sellers of spices from the Molucca Islands, Malabar Coast, or Zanzibar and incense that had come across the Horn of Africa or the Empty Quarter of the Arabian Peninsula. Unequivocally, the strongest and most lingering images we have of the spice trade come from the Mediterranean shores of the Middle East, where the Oriental and Occidental worlds met, competed, and intermingled. Turks, Persians, Portuguese, Berbers, Sogdians, Gujaratis, Chinese, Greeks, and Romans have clearly had their hands in spice bags, baskets, and barrels. And yet, it seems that those of the Semitic language family—​Arabs and Jews, Phoenicians and Nabataeans—​have played peculiarly pivotal roles in the development and control of the global spice trade. To validate the impression that spice merchants, especially those of Arab and Jewish descent, were among those who played a disproportionately important role in efforts to globalize trade across continents, we must look for evidence beyond the souks clustered at the crossroads of the Middle East. To be sure, Arabs and Jews did not act alone but interacted with Persians, Sogdians, Berbers, Uighurs, Gujaratis, Han Chinese, Spaniards, Portuguese, Italians, and Dutch at these crossroads. We must go to the ends of the line—​to the farthest corners of the earth—​where the Silk Road, the Frankincense Trail, the Spice Route, and the Camino Real of Chile and Chocolate become no more than rustic footpaths climbing up into the hinterlands. It is at the ends of these lines that we might truly fathom how the spice trade contributed to today’s globalization and how pervasive the culinary influences of Arabs and Jews have become. For our immediate purposes, imagine the ends of one line for trading spices to be Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, and Quanzhou and Xi’an, China, on the east and the montane hinterlands of Taos, Santa Fe, and Las Vegas, New Mexico, on the west. Let us begin in Ulaanbaatar’s precursor, historically known as Yihe Huree (literally “Great Camp”), which stood not far from where the most far-flung of all Arab contributions to global cuisines was once recorded. From 1328 to 1332 CE, the country from Xi’an northward into Mongolia was ruled by the emperor Tutemur, who suffered chronic health problems during his brief reign. These maladies were severe enough to prompt him to seek dietary advice from a medical doctor who had vast knowledge of medicinal and culinary herbs in use in Persia and Arabia.

6  |  Introduction

The man chosen to be the imperial physician, Hu Szu-hui, was most surely of Hui Muslim ancestry and had widely traveled in Central Asia, Asia Minor, and the Arabian Peninsula before settling in northcentral China. Hu Szu-hui encouraged the emperor’s kitchen staff to favor healthful Persian, Arabic, and Turkish recipes heavily laden with certain dried spices that were already becoming popular in China and Mongolia. In essence, he worked with the emperor’s chefs to craft China’s first dietary manual. It was a valiant but ultimately unsuccessful attempt to keep Tutemur, a descendant of Kublai Khan, alive, in good health, and in power for several years longer. Although the emperor soon died, the Hui doctor’s recipes lived on in a medieval manuscript, Yin-shan cheng-yao, recently translated by food historian Paul Buell and ethnobotanist Eugene Anderson. One of Hu Szu-hui’s recipes curiously resurfaced in a place halfway around the world from where the Hui and Mongolians had traded spices.8 At a meeting of ethnobiologists in May 2013, Gene Anderson recounted to me the story of how, while rummaging through used books in a shop in Silver City, New Mexico, he noticed a recipe for lamb stew in a 1939 booklet called Potajes Sabrosos. He showed the recipe to Paul, and they quickly realized that it was nearly identical to a recipe that Hu Szu-hui had left behind in China some seven hundred years earlier—​one that Gene and Paul had translated for Yin-shan cheng-yao. Both recipes were for a lamb and garbanzo bean stew. The Spanish version by Cleofas Jaramillo that appeared in Potajes Sabrosos—​later translated as The Genuine New Mexico Tasty Recipes9—​lacked only one ingredient that appeared in the Arabic-Persian stew recorded by Hu Szu-hui. That single missing ingredient was mastic, a gum from a wild pistachio tree relative that was used as a thickening agent in the Mediterranean. Hispanic New Mexicans apparently found their own local surrogates for such gummy thickeners. The similarities between these two recipes are so uncanny that some sort of cultural diffusion makes more sense to food historians than independent invention does. Had the same core knowledge of what spices to pair with lamb and beans independently diffused to different corners of the earth? How in the name of heaven had the same recipe landed at one end of the line as well as at another halfway around the world, when both of these places were equally remote from the Middle East, the heartland of Arabic and Jewish spice trade?

< Harira , Carne de Cordero en la Olla Lamb and Garbanzo Bean Stew

This ancient dish may have emerged at different times in multiple places, but it clearly spread with Arab and Persian influence as far east as Mongolia, and with Jewish and Arab-Berber influence as far west as the Hispanic communities of northern Mexico. Currently, its most widely acclaimed expression is in the many variations of harira and chorba prepared in Morocco and other parts of the Maghreb, where they are traditionally eaten at sundown each day during Ramadan. In this particular recipe, I have based the ingredient list and cooking instructions on the Hispanic culinary traditions documented in Arroyo Hondo, New Mexico, by Cleofas Jaramillo in 1939, then elaborated on them through attention to Paula Wolfert’s records on the various types of harira in Morocco. Following Wolfert, I suggest that the garbanzos be soaked and then peeled, a step not done in all places where such a stew has diffused, but one that allows for a softer texture. In a pair of harira recipes, she illustrates two different thickeners, a mixture of semolina flour and water in one and beaten eggs in the other. To enhance this rich culinary melting pot, I have used mastic here in the same role, a soup ingredient included in the medical dietary recommendations known as Yin-shan cheng-yao by Hu Szu-hui, published in the early 1300s. Look for mastic, sometimes labeled gum mastic, in food shops specializing in Greek, Turkish, or Middle Eastern ingredients or online. Serve with a flat bread, such as Lebanese or Jordanian za’atar bread, focaccia, or even a whole wheat tortilla. A small salad of romaine lettuce hearts, watercress, or purslane leaves tossed with dried mint, lemon juice, and olive oil complements this stew, as well. Serves 4. ⅓ cup dried garbanzo beans 1½ cups water 1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice ¼ cup olive oil or smen (Moroccan fermented salted butter) 1 pound boneless lamb from the shoulder, cut into 1-inch cubes 1 large white onion, finely chopped 4 plum tomatoes, finely chopped 1 teaspoon finely crushed mastic Salt and white or black pepper ½ cup fresh cilantro leaves, minced 1 teaspoon freshly ground cassia cinnamon ½ teaspoon peeled and minced fresh ginger



½ ½ ¼ 2

teaspoon peeled and minced fresh turmeric teaspoon freshly ground cumin seeds teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg Pinch of saffron threads lemons, cut into wedges

In a bowl, cover the garbanzo beans with the water and stir in the lemon juice. Allow to soak for 8 to 24 hours in a warm spot or, if preferred, in the refrigerator. Drain, rinse, and then rub the beans between your fingertips to release their skins. Set the beans aside. In a heavy pot, heat the olive oil over medium-low heat. Add the lamb and brown the meat on all sides. Using a slotted spoon, transfer the lamb to a plate. Add the onion to the oil remaining in the pan and sauté over medium-low heat until translucent, 4 to 5 minutes. Add the tomatoes and cook, stirring occasionally, for a couple minutes to release their juices. Return the lamb to the pan, add the garbanzos and mastic, season with salt and pepper, and stir well. Add water to a depth of 2 to 3 inches, raise the heat to medium-high, and bring the mixture to a boil. Lower the heat to a gentle simmer and cook uncovered, stirring occasionally, until the beans are nearly tender, about 45 minutes. Add water as needed to cook the beans properly and to maintain a good stew consistency. Add the cilantro, cinnamon, ginger, turmeric, cumin, nutmeg, and saffron, stir well, and continue to simmer until the garbanzos are tender, about 20 minutes longer. Ladle the stew into individual bowls and serve. Pass the lemon wedges at the table for guests to squeeze into their bowls as desired. Buell, Paul D., and Eugene N. Anderson, eds. A Soup for the Qan: Chinese Dietary Medicine of the Mongol Era as Seen in Hu Szu-hui’s Yin-Shan Cheng-yao. London and New York: Keegan Paul International, 2000. Jaramillo, Cleofas M. New Mexico Tasty Recipes. Layton, UT: Gibbs Smith, 2008, p. 2. Wolfert, Paula. Couscous and Other Good Food from Morocco. New York: Harper & Row, 1973, pp. 58–​61.

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