Fork U with Dr. Terry Simpson

Fish sauce. It sounds unappetizing, and if you open a bit and take a whiff, you might think the same thing.How to make it: take some small fish, all of it- head, intestines. Cover with salt and put it into a container. Let it sit there for months. Then collect the liquid. Some say this is a great culinary invention; some say this is proof that we will eat anything. But before you run away in protest - Worcestershire.Worcestershire - yes, I had to learn to pronounce itLea and Perrins Worcestershire sauce is a mix of anchovies, vinegar, molasses, tamarind, garlic, onions, and some spices. The anchovies are mixed with salt for two years. The garlic and onions are mixed with vinegar for 18 months. Those are blended together, and you have the sauce you put on steak or add to a Bloody Mary.That is the same culinary principle behind Roman fish sauce. While Lea and Perrins started selling it in 1837, they are part of a longer history.Roman TimesThe Romans called their famous sauce garum. It wasn’t just one sauce; there were wide varieties. They put garum on every dish you can think of. Vegetables? Add garum. Made some nice lamb? More garum. Oh, look at this fish; it needs fish sauce.When the Romans ruled Britain, they built massive trade routes for garum. I mean, Britain had a lot of fish. We don’t know any particular recipe for garum. But the British palate retained a cultural love for salty, fermented fish condiments.So why did the Romans love this sauce? Umami and salt. Two great combinations, one great sauce. Well, some of the sauces are great; some are, well, fishy.The Greeks Had It Before the RomansMost of Rome was plagiarized from the Greeks. Not just the marble, but the food.The Greeks appreciated salted and fermented fish products centuries before a wolf nursed the Roman Empire. Greeks called it garos.The Romans were good at taking someone else’s idea, making it their own, producing enormous quantities of it, and distributing it across their empire. Think roads, aqueducts, architectural ideas, and food. And fish sauce tickled their palates.Fish were abundant along the Mediterranean coast, and to preserve the fish, they used salt.The Fish Sauce Millionaire of PompeiiWhen Mount Vesuvius erupted in AD 79, it buried Pompeii beneath volcanic material. But it preserved a record of Roman life. From their version of fast food to brothels.Among the people whose lives we can reconstruct from the evidence is a businessman named Aulus Umbricius Scaurus. Scaurus made his fortune selling fish sauce.He was not a humble fisherman selling a few jars at the local market. Scaurus’ name has been found on containers, distributed throughout greater Pompeii.In the atrium of his home, mosaics depicted containers of fish sauce, complete with labels advertising the quality of his products. In the atrium of his home (Casa di Umbricius Scaurus), a black-and-white mosaic floor featured his branding. At each corner of the central pool (impluvium), a mosaic depicts a single fish-sauce jug (urceus) inscribed with promotional copy praising his premium products.And Romans loved their fish sauce.A Brief DetourI was in Jerusalem in the late 1990’s. The food scene in Jerusalem was either great Arab street food or Israeli food, leaving nothing interesting. So when I heard about a restaurant that served Roman food, the kind served 2000 years ago, I was intrigued. No tomatoes; those were not introduced until a few hundred years ago from the Americas. But what they featured was fish sauce. Lots of fish sauce.This was not Worcestershire. But it was on everything. If you submitted to the Roman Empire, they would not make you eat your food with garum. If you resisted and they had to expend efforts to conquer you, they would salt your land like their fish (Carthage) and force you to drink garum. This is why they conquered the world. Death or garum - sounds like an old joke.What Happens When Fish Becomes Sauce?When fish are salted, the enzymes naturally present in the fish, along with some microorganisms, help break fish proteins into smaller peptides and free amino acids. The process is called proteolysis. No, these peptides are not for injection.One of the important compounds released is glutamate, an amino acid, responsible for the taste called umami. Umami is savory, or meaty. Think Parmesan cheese, mushrooms, ripe tomatoes, and even Doritos.Fish sauce contains a lot of glutamate. And if you ever have used a spice called Accent (or Ac’cent) you are getting the pure form of MSG. Which is the sodium salt of the amino acid.Of course, food scientists examining Vietnamese fish sauce have identified the compounds responsible for its flavor.But there is more to fish sauce than glutamate.But Wasn’t This Just Rotten Fish?When fish are left to rot, undesirable microorganisms multiply. But add salt, and you create an environment in which many bacteria can no longer grow.That does not mean every ancient batch was safe. Even today, we can have spoilage under what we think are ideal conditions. Poorly controlled fish fermentation presents risks.The Romans, and Greeks before them, probably with trial and error, found the secret sauce. Less the flavor and more the manner to use salt, time, and to create a valuable seasoning.Garum Was Not Just One SauceGarum is generic for Roman fish sauce. Much like ketchup is generic for lots of different tomato sauces.Some sauces were made with different fish, parts of the fish, and various production techniques.And, of course, there were grades of quality. There were ordinary sauces for everyday meals and expensive products to impress dinner guests. One preparation even blended fish sauce with wine.Roman Medicine: When a Condiment Became a CurePliny the Elder described medicinal uses for garum. Like food, he used it for everything from digestive complaints and dog bites to earaches. Ancient medicine frequently blurred the line between food and medicine.Pliny also believed plenty of things that would make me wince. And as many people want to look back for ancient cures, we don’t put fermented fish sauce into an ear because somebody recommended it two thousand years ago.Today, claims are accompanied by beautiful websites, supplement subscriptions, and someone assuring you that doctors don’t want you to know the secret. Worcestershire might be good for a steak, but if you have a dog bite, see the doctor and take your antibiotics.Fish sauce can be high in sodium; even a small amount may add tremendous flavor. Bea MacMillan learned that on the cooking show, where he added both fish sauce and soy sauce to a dish, it was so salty that Simon Majumdar, one of the judges, almost spit it out. Simon and I have visited Beau at his restaurant, Elements in Paradise Valley, AZ. He doesn’t use fish sauce; his food is excellent, and he has forgiven Simon for eliminating him.Monosodium glutamate, contrary to some, is not a toxin. It is a normal amino acid found throughout your body.The Romans Were Not AloneWe don’t know who started fermenting fish and putting it on food, but it is everywhere.In Southeast Asia, fish sauce is an essential ingredient in cuisine. Vietnam, Thailand, and the Philippines each have their own histories, traditions, flavors, and techniques.Travel throughout the ancient world brought the process and flavors everywhere. We don’t know where it started. We know Greeks, then Romans, embraced the process along the Mediterranean. Asian cooks developed their own fish-sauce traditions, which remain central to many of the world’s great cuisines.And Then the English Got InvolvedWorcestershire sauce probably isn’t Roman garum rebottled.The story is an Englishman returning from India who missed his sauce on his food. He went to Lea and Perrin’s shop and asked if they could reproduce it. They put together the ingredients and let it simmer. They tasted it, and banished the barrel to their basement. Two years later, they cleaned out the basement, and before tossing out the barrel, they tasted it. Bingo, the fermentation mellowed the flavors, and we have a sauceWorcestershire on a steak magnifies the flavors present. Too much can mask the flavor. I use Worcestershire sauce as a basis for a steak sauce. It is a simple sauce to make. No fermenting fish in salt.Two Thousand Years Later, We Are Still Learning to TasteSometimes we imagine the history of food as a progression to sophisticated modern cuisine. But the story of fish sauce suggests man has been manipulating tastes for a long time.Ancient cooks discovered that salt could preserve food. That if you preserved fish in salt, time would transform the ingredients. Sometimes they got lucky, and that liquid added amazing flavor.Today, people like me love to explain the chemistry of food, how it interacts with the tongue, and its effects on the body. But knowing that chemistry doesn’t mean I can create a great dish. I can explain why you like it.Food can be a small enterprise with a restaurant, or a major industry. Scaurus became wealthy enough to advertise his fish sauce on the mosaic floors of his own home.All because Roman cooks developed recipes using it with wine, oil, vinegar, herbs, and spices. Physicians even attempted to turn it into...

What Would You Pack to Build a Civilization?We have talked about empires before, from the ancient ones to the British, but nothing prepares you for the vastness of the Pacific Ocean. This was Polynesia, and we are looking at how people built a civilization and what they packed for it.Someone, somewhere on one of those islands, decided to take a canoe out and explore. Finding another island, or two, or three. Later, someone said,“Hey, our island is getting crowded; we need to make a new colony somewhere else."You may have heard ancient stories about “an island” passed on as stories are. Perhaps someone was there before and returned with stories of another island that could be the future home. Complete with freshwater and fresh tropical drinks like a daiquiri.Looking at those distances, even by today's standards, all I can think about is a long flight across the Pacific. The seats are uncomfortable, and the food isn’t particularly good. I’d hope for an upgrade that might give a little more legroom, and perhaps a meal that doesn’t come wrapped in plastic. Of course, I would hope the Wi-Fi works. Because someone on X is wrong.The ancient Polynesians crossed this same ocean in canoes. Navigation before GPS (seriously, no Google Maps). Probably larger seats, and their Wi-Fi was the stars, the currents, and finding seabirds meant land and home.Over centuries, voyagers reached those islands and settled them.It is hard to imagine how extraordinary this is. My Western mind is blown to think that this is before Europeans crossed the pond.The Polynesians didn’t just carry provisions for the voyage. They transported what they needed to settle an island. And the food was the constant.They were bringing the means to make those places habitable. And that makes me think of another enormous frontier that humans are only beginning to explore. Space. The final frontier (where is Captain Kirk).Their Pacific, Our Universe“Space, the final frontier,” I was about ten when that TV show came out, and it was one of my favorites. “Boldly going where no man had gone before.”For us to go to space, we either need to be a billionaire or a government. But for the people of the Pacific, they needed a few friends to build a boat. We have to have thousands of pounds of rocket fuel, lots of thrust just to escape Earth’s gravity and get into orbit. They needed a push from the beach, and they were on the ocean in their vessel.Now comes the important question. What do we eat when we get there? This is a question NASA is still trying to answer. If you read The Martian, potatoes were the answer, and some of that came from the folks who used them.Right now, the International Space Station receives regular deliveries of food from Earth; it was the first Instacart. I’ve had the pleasure of trying some of this food, and I must say I prefer it to American Airlines' fare.If you are in a canoe, you can bring food along for a journey. If you inhabit a new island, you need to bring the plants to grow, the pigs, and whatever else to establish a colony. Same with Mars. On Star Trek, they had a machine that looked like a fancy vending machine, turn a button, and out came clam chowder. They avoided the messy background of how this got assembled, was it pre-made, or magically put together and transported like the transporter room that Bones McCoy hated to get in.NASA has already experimented with growing lettuce, peppers, and other plants in space, using relatively little water and without conventional soil. Biosphere was an experiment done in the desert to see how people did in a version of space, just as barren, but still a windshield away from the real Earth. In that and many other experiments, NASA, as well as many of Earth’s engineers and farmers, work with plants to see what might work. Our friends in Polynesia had done those same experiments.They didn’t have to create life-support systems on an uninhabitable planet. They were moving familiar food-producing organisms into unfamiliar environments.You could eat a coconut and plant one. The time to plant a tree is 100 years ago; the next best time is now. Same with a yam and breadfruit. Bring some to eat, some to plant.We think of space, and we don’t rely on just NASA. Biosphere was privately funded like SpaceX. In fact, I am writing this with help from those satellites now. We have lots of private financing, not specifically looking to go to space, but consider this: we are making artificial meat in a lab. Why? Some want the taste without the cow. Bringing a cow to Mars might make a carnivore happy, but it isn’t practical. We have water engineers saving water and trying to grow crops in the most inhospitable places on earth. They aren’t thinking of Mars or beyond; they are thinking of feeding a hungry planet.Each of our ingredients, breadfruit, yams, and coconuts, was not part of a grand experiment to find a new island. But something that had worked for centuries, feeding a people, and some learned to grow them to make it easier. Like all of our civilizations. They learn to grow something, then they can grow it elsewhere, and civilization spreads.Breadfruit: What Do You Do With It?Breadfruit, it isn’t bread, and it doesn’t look like the fruit most of us know. It is a bumpy green ball about the size of a grapefruit. Cut it open, and you’ll find pale, starchy flesh.Roast breadfruit, and the aroma and texture are a bit like freshly baked bread. I think that is more imagination than I have; perhaps it was so long at sea. To me, it is more like a roasted potato than a loaf of sourdough.In our series, we have seen that early farmers take a wild plant and learn how to grow it for the village. They plant some wheat in the spring and harvest it in the fall. But every year it needs to be planted again. The soil for wheat or rice was often rich soil with water nearby.The soil on most islands is not great for growing rice or wheat. It is often volcanic, or sandy, or a mix. But these Breadfruit trees can be planted in volcanic soil, or even sandy soil, and in five to seven years, the tree is producing fruit. It thrives on that volcanic soil with good drainage and lots of rain that the South Pacific has.Chopped is one of the Food Network's game shows where chefs are given a surprise basket of ingredients to make a meal in a short period of time. On occasion, breadfruit shows up. If the breadfruit is firm, it is mature and mostly starch, like a potato. Something you can cut, deep fry, mash, or boil and add some olive oil to (the Polynesians didn’t have olive oil, or even Popeye).If the breadfruit is fully ripe, the flesh is. soft, creamy, sweeter, and almost custard-like. This would be a custard, or maybe throw it in the ice-cream machine. The ice cream machine on Chopped is a trap; it almost always goes on the brink, like McDonald’s.But that mature breadfruit tree can produce hundreds of pounds of fruit during a season. And unlike an annual grain crop, a breadfruit tree can continue producing for decades. Just like wheat and rice provided a dependable source of carbohydrates, or the potato, the breadfruit was the source for these islanders.You could go to an island, plant some trees, come back later, and start to colonize it. You could start with a small number of people, and as the trees' harvest grew, as well as the harvest from the ocean, you could gradually sustain a larger population.Taro, Yams, and the South American–New Zealand ExpressTaro is one of those vegetables you might have seen in an Asian market. It looks like a hairy, unattractive potato. Cut it open, and there is a starchy interior, creamy white, sometimes flecked with purple.Taro is the foundation of poi. And since it seems every strip mall in California has some poi, you probably had one of the essential foods of Polynesia. Yes, poki and poi, coming to a mall near you.You cannot eat Taro raw because it contains calcium oxalate crystals (if your body makes these, they are called kidney stones). Those crystals will irritate your throat and esophagus.Yams were another useful crop. And before someone sends me an angry message from the sweet potato industry, a true yam is not a sweet potato. This is one of those facts you will see someone talk about at Thanksgiving. Yes, we know. And I am assured that the Polynesians did not have marshmallows.Some yams grow into enormous underground tubers. They can be stored for considerable periods, much like you can store potatoes, making them valuable when fresh food is scarce.A South American PassengerSweet potatoes used by the Polynesians originated in the Americas. And that means that there was a trade route between those civilizations. In fact, the Polynesians were growing yams before Europeans reached the Pacific.The precise movements of people and plants, and the dates and routes involved, we can only guess. Who knows who reached whom first? The result of that trade was that the sweet potato became part of the food system of the Pacific, all the way to New Zealand.The South American–New Zealand Express. Enter the MāoriThe Polynesian ancestors , the Māori ,reached New Zealand around the late thirteenth century.New Zealand was much colder than the tropical islands. Breadfruit trees and coconuts didn’t grow well in New Zealand. But the sweet potato, called kūmara in Māori, did.They developed storage pits to preserve the harvest through colder seasons. Much like your root cellar.Coconuts: Food, Water, and a Hardware...

Think about the last time you put sugar in your coffee or tea, a teaspoon, maybe two. Perhaps you avoided it because someone on the internet told you sugar was poison.Sugar helped build the British Empire, financed fortunes on both sides of the Atlantic, and contributed to the enslavement of millions of Africans. It made tea palatable to the British, encouraged the development of an extraordinary global trading network, and eventually gave British dentists plenty of work.It was so valuable that Napoleon made the sugar beet famous, because he didn’t want to import from the UK. . Sugar interests helped bring down the Hawaiian monarchy. And long before the United States was worried about communism in Cuba, American businessmen were deeply interested in Cuban sugar.All of this from a plant that is essentially an overgrown tropical grass.A Grass Worth More Than GoldSugarcane was first cultivated thousands of years ago in what is now New Guinea. It was brought through Southeast Asia and into India, where we converted the sweet juice into something we would recognize as sugar granules.Sugar was not the first sweet taste homo sapiens encountered. We had honey, ripe fruit, and sweet plant juices. Our attraction to sweetness signals a source of energy.India is where sugar extraction improved. From India, Arab traders brought sugar to the Middle East, North Africa, the Mediterranean, and Europe.The European wealthy household offered sugar as a sign of its importance. Ordinary people had little access to it. The pattern is something we’ve seen before with both spice and salt. It is fashionable first in the royal court. It becomes a trickle-down phenomenon as production drives prices down or improved trade routes come online.The Empire in a TeacupThat cup of tea, so famous in Britain, was imported first from China, then from India. Likewise, the sugar came from the other side of the world, and even that cup, porcelain, from the East.But going to London, I do what millions of tourists do: I find a place for “high tea.” That is far from the traditional high tea. High tea was originally a working-class supper, featuring meat pies, not cucumber finger food. But still sitting in a fancy hotel, being served some Jing second flush Darjeeling tea, with sugar, seems so British.As an aside, what we are participating in is actually a version of “low tea.” Invented by a Duchess because dinner was served after 8 pm, she became hungry at around 4 pm.Plantation LifeIf you go to the Virgin Islands or anywhere there were sugar plantations, you will probably buy a straw hat, drink some rum drink, and find someplace to get away from the humidity. It is a sultry, pleasant vacation. While there, visit a plantation where sugar was harvested, and see how brutal conditions were.Similar to the slavery in the Southern states, sugar plantations were only good to the owners. The slaves toiled in dangerous conditions, where the cane had to be cut, crushed, boiled, and refined. The slave labor was needed due to the growing European taste for sugar.In the British-acquired colonies of Barbados and Jamaica, merchants made fortunes from sugar, while slaves’ lives were cut short by the horrific conditions. Industries spawned from sugar included shipping companies, insurers, and investors. Sugar taxes benefited Britain's treasury.We cannot forget Rum, even though a night of Rum might want you to forget. Rum comes from Molasses, a byproduct of sugar production, which was fermented and distilled.By the nineteenth century, the increased supply of sugar drove down its price to a level that the working class could afford. The sweetened tea, jam, biscuits, and other foods that would once have been considered luxuries became common.Increased sugar’s first health issue appeared first in the mouth. The British began losing their famous association with dentistry. Sugar helped build the British Empire. It also did wonders for the future of dentistry.Fossil records of early humans show that many died from tooth infections. The widespread use of sugar in the diet began to show up as a chronic disease, spawning yet another industry, dentistry. Other chronic diseases from sugar would follow.When Refusing Sugar Became a Moral DecisionIn 1791, a group of British abolitionists began organizing a boycott of sugar because of the brutal conditions in the British West Indies. This might have been one of the first consumer boycotts of note, because the year after organizing the boycott, an estimated 400,000 British consumers participated.Women couldn’t vote for members of Parliament, but they could influence what their households purchased. They encouraged people to buy East India sugar as an alternative to sugar produced by enslaved Africans in the West Indies.In museums, you can find sugar bowls bearing antislavery messages. Imagine that. Your sugar bowl tells visitors something about your moral convictions. Today we have bumper stickers.Sugar BeetsSugar beets are an alternative to cane sugar. To be clear, your body doesn’t care where the sugar comes from, corn cane, or a beet, but it became important to Napoleon.Imagine being at war with Britain, something France does as a pastime, and having to import sugar from the place you are at war with. Sounds like oil, doesn’t it?In 1801, sugar beets were harvested, and the first factory was established to extract sugar in Prussia. When Napoleon occupied Prussia in 1807, he noted the industry. In 1811, Napoleon promoted large-scale beet sugar cultivation in France to replace imported cane sugar.This also led to the proliferation of beet salads, something useful for composts and Californians. Okay, I live in California, but I find beets taste like dirt, and that is a hill I shall occupy.Lest We Lose Our HumilityI enjoy making fun of the British, even though I love London. But we Americans have our own bad relationship with sugar on the political side. And certainly, our proliferation of hyper-processed foods would have been nothing without sugar. And while Britain has dentistry and tooth problems, we took to sugar with our own chronic diseases, obesity, and diabetes.Hawaii became a state not because we liberated the Native peoples, but because we wanted sugar cane. We overthrew a recognized government, not because we wanted a lei, but the sugar. That was our Marines backing up an industry like the East Indian Company, which had their own military.Now, while some blame sugar entirely for obesity, and have elaborate explanations of the carb-insulin hypothesis, I will have another article about this later this week, about sugar and what it does.Suffice it to say, the carb insulin hypothesis is a model that is simplistic and incorrect. And while I normally would attach a paid section to this, going through the chemistry and biochemistry of sugar, I will instead have an entire article for the paid members coming out this next week.

With all the spices we have access to, it is amazing how bland recipes have become. I have many cookbooks, some from great chefs, television personalities, and friends. What I am always surprised by is how bland the food has become.People seem to think a bit of salt, pepper, maybe onions, and garlic provide the spices one needs. Perhaps it is because some associate spice with heat. Mostly because many have never experimented with some of those great warm spices available. A pinch of coriander, some freshly ground cumin, a little cardamom, or a touch of cinnamon can turn an ordinary dish into something remarkable. And the most astonishing part is that these spices financed voyages around the world, built cities, created fortunes, and caused people to kill one another.Without the spice trade, it is safe to say that the United States, as we know it, would be vastly different from what it is now. The money loaned to the United States, when we were a fledgling country, came from the wealthy spice merchants from what was considered one of the great hyperempires of the world, based in Amsterdam.But before we go to the birth of the United States, let me take you to the meatball.Today’s Meatball is a bit boringWhen I went to the States for college, the meatballs in the continental US were boring. Many are just combinations of beef and pork, and often the meat is overcooked, leaving the meatball dry, although that is often hidden in the sauce (tomato sauce if you are making spaghetti, or a gravy sauce for others). One recipe had frozen meatballs from the grocery store placed into a crock pot with a vat of grape jelly (it wasn’t bad, it was ghastly).Most meatballs are like having only the meat from a burger without the crunch and sourness of the pickle, the sweetness of the tomato, and that touch of bitterness from the onion. I didn’t understand why my grandmother’s and mom’s meatballs were so delicious, and these were so dull. Over time, I had received recipes from different people who made meatballs, and they were all versions of the same recipe until history showed me the ingredients I was missing.In Search of the Mighty MeatballWhile there may have been other reasons to visit Turkey, Norway, Italy, and Sweden, there was always Project Meatball. Finding a meatball that tasted like my mom’s. I can’t ask mom about this; her dementia didn’t let me crack that code, so I had to travel the world to find the secret to unlock the flavors in her meatballs.The Swedish Meatball’s Origins in TurkeyIf you go to Stockholm, consider taking a “food tour.” Not only will you learn about the history and culture of the country, but you will also eat well. Then, if looking for recommendations, they know the city and its food like no other. In this case, I wanted a meatball. The traditional meatball as served in Stockholm.But when talking to the food historians in Sweden, the meatball did not originate in Sweden. The meatball was brought to Sweden by King Charles XII in 1714. He was forced into exile in the Ottoman Empire (now Turkey) after losing a war to Russia in 1709. For five years, he was a guest of the Sultan, and besides trying to get the Ottoman Empire to go to war against Russia, he enjoyed the Ottoman cuisine. After five years, the Sultan became tired of Charles's scheming and tossed Charles out of Turkey.Charles returned to Sweden with two culinary items: the meatball and coffee.The Meatball in the Ottoman EmpireIstanbul is the western world’s second most cosmopolitan city. This was the last city of the Roman Empire, until the Sultans conquered it in 1453, which began the Ottoman Empire. But today I was walking in The Spice Market. This market has been in business since 1664. You can imagine when Charles XII came here, and his nose was filled with aromas from around the world. Aromas he had never smelled before.Let's start counting world hyperpowers. The Ottoman Empire was one. It was built not just on military conquests, but on spices. The spice road, silk trail, ended here, and from here, money was made selling these goods to Europe.Food Charles had never eaten before. When I was there, the smell of the spices was so abundant and so fresh that my nose was overjoyed. Just outside the spice market, as everywhere, are people who will sell you lamb cooked simply over fire, and to that lamb is added lemon zest, salt, zaatar, as well as nutmeg.There was something comforting about the smell in the spice market. I didn’t realize my brain was remembering food aromas from home.Putting ground meat with spices isn’t an original idea. In the Roman Empire, the cookbook author Apicius (25BC–37AD) describes meats from chicken to fish being ground with spices added. Almost every culture has a variation of a meatball (ground meats roasted with some spices). Rome is our second major global power. Yes, we learned about the conquest of the world, but where did Rome make its money? Trade. It conquered not to force people into a religion or a political system, but to secure trade routes. What made a lot of Rome’s money? Spices and food.For the Ottoman Empire, the meats they used were lamb and poultry. No pork (they were Muslim and pork was forbidden). The flavor came from the variety of spices available to the Ottomans. The Ottomans, it turned out, had all the known spices of the Western World. The spices from Asia and Indochina were traded to Europe through the Silk Road, which began in modern-day Xi’an and ended in Istanbul.The Swedish VersionUntil the mid 1800’s, meatballs were mostly consumed by the wealthy in Sweden. Charles didn’t have meatballs as a meal, but would eat them as a snack with coffee (coffee being the other Turkish product he introduced to Sweden). Meatballs were first mentioned in Cajsa Warg’s 1754 Swedish cookbook. She described meatballs as chopped meat (calf, sheep, or ox) with grated bread and eggs. The seasonings were pepper, salt, and nutmeg. Nutmeg, for a time, was worth more per weight than gold.By the 1850s, the meatball had become a common food for the Swedes. Much like fashion trends are set by the famous today, the meatball was the fashionable food and became a beloved dish of Sweden.But let us get back to spices and the world.A Night in AmsterdamMany years ago, I stayed in the Waldorf Astoria, Amsterdam. The hotel is made up of six canal houses, once owned by some of the city’s wealthy residents.In the seventeenth century, Amsterdam was the center of one of the great commercial empires in history. That empire was based on spicesTea and pepper were the commodities that allowed Britain to become an empire. Notice a pattern here. Trade, often involving spices, but stable trade, which was backed by a navy. A different group of spices for Amsterdam: Nutmeg, Cloves, Cinnamon, and Pepper. Amsterdam became one of the wealthiest cities in the world from the spice trade. In fact, so wealthy that it is considered one of the great hyperempires of the world. Along with the Roman Empire, the British Empire, and the United States.Most look at Amsterdam during this period and have called it a global power, and this would be our third global power.A Young RepublicIf you are in Amsterdam, you can find the house where John Adams lived. As ambassador, Adams secured loans to our fledgling republic, helping keep it afloat when the US was nearly bankrupt. All because the world loved the taste of nutmeg.Amsterdam wasn’t the FirstSpices were a way to display wealth and status. If you wanted to impress your guests, you served them a meal filled with spices.One of the first spices traded was pepper. Pepper was valuable because it was small, durable, easy to transport, and in tremendous demand. In medieval London, a pound of pepper could cost the equivalent of a week’s wages for an ordinary laborer.The Price of NutmegThe Banda Islands, now part of Indonesia, were once the world’s source of nutmeg and mace. The islanders traded these spices with Asian merchants for centuries before Europeans arrived.In 1621, Dutch forces under Jan Pieterszoon Coen conquered the Banda Islands. Much of the indigenous population was killed, expelled, or enslaved, and the islands were reorganized around spice production for corporate profit.New York City is sometimes referred to as New Amsterdam, because Amsterdam laid claim to the Big Apple. Britain gained New York in exchange for a small spice island, Run. The exchange was one of those moments when the spice trade and New York intersect.Today, you can buy spices for a fraction of what they were. And yet, most of those spices are underused in kitchens.Many of those spices have medicinal properties: turmeric is anti-inflammatory, cinnamon helps regulate blood sugar, and pepper improves the bioavailability of many compounds. Adding spices to your cooking not only improves flavor, but also your health.But without spices, many global powers would never have been. Rome, the Ottomans, Britain, Amsterdam, and the United States might never have been. There may never have been a reason to cross oceans, develop corporations like The Hudson Bay, or Dutch East India. The United States is now a major power. Spices are cheap, and the seas are defended to allow them to move freely. That is why we are mighty - it is the mighty spiceSo don’t let the great explorers of the past lives be for naught - add some spice to your cooking.Coming Home Through FoodThey say you travel...

Tea: The Drink That Built an Empire—and Helped Break OneChina had the tea. Britain had the appetite. John Hancock had a business to protect.British TV - No disaster can happen before a cuppaWatch almost any British television series, and tea appears whenever you enter someone’s home or office. Tea, apparently, is not only a beverage but also a medication for both mental and physical issues.Oh, turns out someone has died? Put the kettle on. Yes, at some point, gin or whisky will be involved, but there is always tea. Were you shot at? Tea. Your spouse has left you? Tea. Need to discuss a murder? Tea.I have been watching Slow Horses, one of the great detective series about MI5. From this, I have learned that British intelligence can tolerate treason, Russian assassins, and Gary Oldman’s personal hygiene, as long as there is tea.It does not matter the hour, morning, afternoon, or evening. And I am always shocked that nobody ever looks at the clock and says, “Perhaps this caffeine will interfere with my sleep.” No. Kettle on. Could be 2 am, and you just showed up to tell them bad news, are hiding from a shooter, or you broke up with your significant other - tea it is.It is not like Americans, who offer coffee to everyone, but close. Tea is offered regardless of time, circumstances, or whether you even like the person. I am convinced that if you do not offer tea to a Brit, you will be breaking a royal command.Civilizations and TeaIn this series about foods that built civilizations, we have covered foods from wheat to salmon, allowing civilizations to settle and develop.Tea is different. Nobody survived a winter because they had enough tea. But tea, like coffee, helped build civilizations, providing a gathering spot. But the love of tea allowed for two wars, espionage, and ritual.The Chinese Had Tea FirstThe legend is that the Chinese Emperor Shen Nong discovered tea when some leaves blew into his hot water almost 5,000 years ago.By the eighth century, during the Tang dynasty, Lu Yu had written The Classic of Tea, an entire book about cultivating, preparing, and drinking tea.Black and Green TeaI’ve always thought green tea tasted like pond water. And despite the many health benefits of green tea, it never appealed to me. Black tea is my preference, and it amazes me that black and green tea come from the same plant, Camellia sinensis.Green tea leaves are heated quickly by steaming or pan-firing right after harvesting to stop oxidation. This keeps the leaves green. Black tea leaves are withered, rolled, and left to fully oxidize in the air, which turns them dark brown or black. Same plant. Different processing.Then the British Discovered TeaWhen tea first arrived in Britain in the 17th century, it was a luxury item, as all new imports are. Catherine of Braganza, the Portuguese wife of Charles II, helped make tea fashionable at the royal court.Expensive and exotic, the sort of imported luxury you drank because other people couldn’t afford it.The tea moved from court to wealthy households and eventually into ordinary homes. Taxes on tea were high, which had the predictable effect of creating a thriving smuggling business.By the eighteenth century, Britain was buying enormous amounts of tea from China. This left a large trade imbalance. China was not importing many British goods, so the Brits had to pay in silver. Silver went east. Tea went west. This was an excellent arrangement if you were China. The British were less enthusiastic. Then they discovered that China would import opium.Things Get UglyThe East India Company discovered an appetite for opium. Despite China's wanting to stop the drug, opium provided a tidy profit for the East India Company. Drug wars have had a similar problem. Opium also solved the trade deficit.When China responded by restricting opium, and when you limit the profit of a Brit, you have war. The so-called opium wars began in 1839.Britain did not go to war because somebody was late delivering Earl Grey. There was more to the wars than a tea trade deficit. But tea was at the center of the trade imbalance. History is almost never as simple as the sentence we remember from school.While the Brits were successful in the opium wars, war is costly, even when you win. Ongoing war takes a bite out of profit.So a fine idea developed. Instead of buying all this tea from China, they might grow it somewhere they already control. Like India.India Already Had TeaThis is one of those parts of history that becomes more interesting when you stop telling it entirely from the British perspective.Tea was already growing in Assam. Indigenous people, including the Singhpho, grew the tea, but it was not to the British taste. Brits preferred the taste of the Chinese varietals. The Chinese had a different method to cultivate and process tea. But they were not forthcoming in offering their knowledge or plants to the Brits. War can make people a bit selfish.So the East India Company decided to steal the plants and knowledgeAnd for that, the East India Company hired Scotsman, Robert Fortune.The Original Tea ThiefBetween 1843 and 1861, the East India Company sent Robert Fortune on multiple trips to China. His mission was to obtain tea plants, seeds, and knowledge, and bring them to India. Then develop an Indian tea industry, solving the trade imbalance.Fortune traveled into areas closed to foreigners, sometimes wearing Chinese clothing and adopting a Chinese appearance. Since he did not speak Chinese, his companions would tell people that he came from across the Great Wall.He visited tea-growing districts, collected plants and seeds, and learned how the Chinese processed tea. He also helped settle the European misconception that green tea and black tea came from entirely different species.Over those years, he brought 20,000 plants out of China. After trial and error, Fortune discovered tea grew best in the province of Darjeeling. Located in West Bengal, this high-altitude region became the perfect home for the tea Fortune smuggled out of China. The steep terrain and cool mists were the perfect environment. Much like Paso Robles is a perfect environment for some wines. Fortune birthed the famous, highly prized “Darjeeling tea” industry.While a native wild tea variety (Camellia sinensis var. assamica) had been discovered in Assam, India, Fortune brought expert Chinese tea masters and workers to the Assam plantations. These workers taught the locals how to properly ferment, roll, and dry the leaves. The Assam district now made tea to the liking of the Brits.My TeaOne of my two current teas is a Darjeeling second flush from JING. Second flush is picked later than the delicate first flush and produces a fuller tea with the flavor that tea people describe as muscatel. I'm not going to hold the cup under my nose and tell you that I'm getting notes of Himalayan stone fruit, leather, and a summer rain falling on the eastern slope of a mountain. When I was in London, I tried various teas. One morning, this one appeared during breakfast at the Langram. It has become a favorite.Somehow, I also imported a small stockpile of the tea in that brief period, when Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Donald Trump seemed to have no tariffs between them. I think it lasted about twenty minutes.TregothnanThe place is called Tregothnan, an estate in Cornwall where the local microclimate is just warm and humid enough for Camellia sinensis. They planted their first tea bushes in 1999 and began selling English-grown tea in 2005.Naturally, I purchased some.But the irony is that now tea can be grown in the UK. While the estate in Cornwall produces about 10 to 15 tons per year. Consider London drinks about 13,000 tons per year.Still, going to war with China over tea. Hiring a spy to bring it to India, and all that effort, and they could have grown tea in their backyard.Boston Tea PartyYou remember the story from grade school, the cry of “Taxation without representation.” Brave colonists standing up against the British Empire.On December 16, 1773, men, disguised as Native Americans, dumped 342 chests of East India Company tea into Boston Harbor.That isn’t the whole story. Because the Tea Act threatened the people selling tea in America. One of the men was a wealthy Boston merchant, John Hancock.We remember the liberty. We don’t talk nearly as much about the profit margins. And that is where the tea gets really interesting.