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shawnmmcc
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OK - plants that changed the world, i.e. there are no substitutes out there.
Candidates - Hot Peppers (chilis), peppercorn, hops (maybe, there was plenty of beer before they were used), opium, coffee/tea (stimulants without addictive properteis - tobacco is nice but without it the world wouldn't be all that different), maybe hemp - I don't know the alernatives for rope and paper, potatoes (a truly different carbohydrate source - also I would suspect plantains/bananas for the same reason, i.e. no substitute except maybe cassava, and that is grown in a different application).
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molly bloom
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Lundenwic
Oct 2001
time: 15:32
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quote:
Originally posted by shawnmmcc
I just couldn't resist the digs with all you Brits out there posting.  Actually with immigration British cuisine has improved, from what I understand Tikka Masala if actually a British dish developed by the Indian community there. Thank God for lipitor (let's me occasionaly cheat and eat such dishes).
That's also why I specified the species. The peppercorn comes from a totally different plant, and predate hot peppars in the Old World. It was actually the one spice I thought of that might rival hot peppers in importance to cuisine. |
The reason I mentioned the peppercorn is not because I imagined it to come from the same stock as the chilli- I don't, as I'm too good a cook and too enthusiastic about history to make that error.
It was rather to show that the much derided English cuisine has since the Dark Ages been rather better than its detractors like to make out.
Unlike you, most of the detractors of English cuisines wouldn't be interested in the history of food and trade, so I thought I'd include pepper as it was highly important not only to the Anglo-Saxons but also to the Romans- partly responsible for their 'Drang nach Osten' into Mesopotamia and Parthia proper, and certainly for their traders to have reached as far south as Malindi in Africa, and Calicut (the famous spice clearing house in southern India).
At one time peppercorns reached the equivalent of
£ 50.00 for 12 Roman ounces. Pliny writes of Rome spending as much as £ 10 000 000 in today's terms with the gold and silver bullion going to Asia- and not returning.
As demand for pepper increased and exceeded what home grown stocks could provide, Indian traders and settlers went further afield- to South East Asia and the Indonesian Archipelago.
After the fall of Rome and the rise of Islam, Arab traders also travelled the spice routes- bringing their new faith with them.
In fact I'd say that three plants greatly affected Roman and Byzantine history- wheat and pepper for eating, and the mulberry tree for silk.
Pepper (peppercorns) also played a part in the accumulation of capital by Venice, the East India Company and the Dutch V.O.C. .
And so a spice important to the palate of Western Europeans since Roman times gave an impetus to the birth of modern capitalism.
So I'd say my pepper trumps your pepper. 
Silk of course also affected the history of the various Chinese states and empires, the Mongols, and the different empires to have occupied Iran.
Coffee and tea were partly responsible for the worsening diet of the urban dwellers of industrializing Western Europe- where once wine or ale would have been drunk, instead the less calorifically or nutritionally valuable caffeine beverages were drunk.
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shawnmmcc
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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.
Oerdin - I will NOT show that hoppy to my little girl - we have so far avoided her getting the idea you dress up live animals, and our kitty cat, while phenominally tolerant, I don't think is quite that forgiving.
However, in a stew with chilis, peppercorns, and potatoes - may add a touch of vinegar and some rosemary and thyme. Good hoppies.
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molly bloom
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Lundenwic
Oct 2001
time: 15:32
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quote:
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.
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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.
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centrifuge
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quote:
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.
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04-04-2005 03:12
Add a few million people - kismet (though I must admit that if the potato significantly reduced famine in Central Europe due to warfare - now that could be highly significant. Look at how the Lutheran-Catholic Wars accross Germeny retarded population growth by probably close to a century). When it's all said and done, though - add an entirely new taste to most of the cuisine of the world 
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