John O'Connell, The Book of Spice

[JoNorvelleWalker]

A pretentious history but one that forced me to get up off my chair [ass] to look up words.  Otiose, anyone?  How about aleatory?

 

Pliny, not sure the younger or the elder, decried pepper.  O'Connell makes no mention that one in five unfortunates cannot taste pepper other than as heat.  Poor Pliny.  But on his deathbed Venerable Bede, the monk, distributed his stash of peppercorns to the brethren.

 

[liuzhou]

3 hours ago, JoNorvelleWalker said:

Pliny, not sure the younger or the elder, decried pepper.

 

The Elder. In Naturalis Historia.

 

BTW, I knew otiose, but not aleatory.

Edited February 21, 2017 by liuzhou (log)

[liuzhou]

The relevant passage reads

 

Quote

It is quite surprising that the use of pepper has come so much into fashion, seeing that in other substances which we use, it is sometimes their sweetness, and sometimes their appearance that has attracted our notice; whereas, pepper has nothing in it that can plead as a recommendation to either fruit or berry, its only desirable quality being a certain pungency; and yet it is for this that we import it all the way from India! Who was the first to make trial of it as an article of food? and who, I wonder, was the man that was not content to prepare himself by hunger only for the satisfying of a greedy appetite?

 Book 12, Chapter 14

 

[Darienne]

Gosh, I'm just pleased at the generosity of the Venerable Bede.  I could not live without pepper I fear.

[JoNorvelleWalker]

Some spices deserve pages upon pages.  The entire entry for Cassia: 

 

"A lesser variety of cinnamon popular in China."

 

 

And if it were not for this recent post I would have no idea what was an "estate agent":

https://forums.egullet.org/topic/154513-reading-reference-books/?do=findComment&comment=2095564

 

The home of a middle class Syrian estate agent living near the Iraqi border was burned.  The estate agent, named Puzurrum,  possessed a pot of cloves.  This was circa 1720 BC.  The nearest cloves were grown over 6,000 miles away.