Welcome to Food World Building Part 3: Herb Lore and Spice Wars

What would my kitchen be without my herbs and spices?

A pretty bland kitchen.

I love using a lot of flavor in my food. Cumin, cinnamon, oregano, basil, rosemary, cayenne, and paprika are all ingredients I swear by. If I could, I'd put cinnamon in everything.

Spices bring out so much in food and are beneficial to living a healthy life. For example, cinnamon has been shown to help with diabetes and ginger helps with stomach aches. Before the advent of modern medicine, a lot of people had gardens where they grew herbs for cooking and medicinal uses.

The difference between herbs and spices are which parts of the plant they come from. Herbs are the leaves, while spices come from the non-leaf parts. A plant can produce herbs and spices, though under different names such as coriander (spice) and cilantro (herb).

Many religions use herbs and spices in ceremonies and ritual practices. Frankincense and myrrh hold special meaning for Christians as they were two  of the three gifts given to Jesus by the Three Kings. Wiccans and those who practice witchcraft use them in their rituals and ceremonies.

Picking up what you need isn't too hard. Most stores have an entire section dedicated to fresh and dried seasonings, some have oil extracts sections, and it's pretty easy to pick up a tea mix. With so much variety and availability, it can be easy to forget that a lot of these herbs and spices weren't always readily available.

The ancient trade highway, The Silk Road, was famous for it's spice trade. Connecting China with Southern Europe, The Silk Road was the only route available for hundred of years for trading in spices and luxury goods. Whoever controlled the road could gain incredible wealth. Today, along the road, there are ruins of the ancient outposts that would protect the traders from bandits and raiders on their journey.

But some weren't satisfied with the slow over land trade routes. For those who lived at one extreme end of the other of The Silk Road and other major trade routes, the demand and, by extension, the prices for exotic spices skyrocketed.

And it help fuel European exploration and imperialism was an interest in obtaining spices. Between the 15th and 17th century, Europeans sought to create and control their own spice trade routes, particularly in India and China. Competition was fierce and hostile take overs of local governments common.

Seasonings are an integral part of human history. Yet, today, herbs and spices are so easy to come by, that it feels like we don't always think about them the same way our ancestors did. Exploration, medicine, and culinary advancements can all be attributed to their existence.

I find that small details, like what kind of herbs and spices are being used, can make or break a fantasy or historical fiction media. Just because seasonings are easy to obtain now, doesn't mean that it would have been on hand 500 years ago. I think that a fantasy setting can seem more believable, yet still otherworldly, if it is established how trade is used in the world building. Often times, I am disappointed to see that these small details are left out entirely.

Incorporating the use of herbs and spices into stories shouldn't be left to the works of fantasy and historical fiction. Science Fiction has a whole spectrum of possibilities for how we might treat them in the future. Imagine what kinds of spices we might find on an alien world, or how explorers might find that they are missing herbal teas from their home world. Will replicators, like those seen in Star Trek,  be able to capture the culinary qualities of seasonings as well as the medicinal? Will new trade wars happen for exotic spices from galaxies far far away?

For more information for hallucinogenic and trans-dimensional properties and trade of spice in Science Fiction please read or watch Dune.

In all seriousness, I can't write about the human relationship with food without bringing up our relationship with herbs and spices. It's amazing how much of an impact on human history these staple kitchen ingredients.

Until next week.

If you enjoyed this post (or it really pissed you off) please like, share, and/or leave a comment. I love hearing from my readers and I hope you guys like hearing from me.

Welcome to Food World Building Part 2: Of Humans and Plants

Happy Earth Day!

Spring seems to have finally shown up in my area. Trees are in bloom, robins are bouncing about, and hikers are soaking up the sun. We’ve had such weird weather lately that the plants around here don’t seem to know what to do.

Pick a season!

It does worry me though. March and April are usually the first months to start planting crops. The odd weather could cause problems for the growing season in my area.

Thankfully, my area isn’t completely dependent on the local farmers (though I highly recommend you support your local farmer). We’re able to import food from all over the world. I can get cheese from New Zealand, avocados from Mexico, and tea from India.

Crop failure is still something that can happen. The many people during the Great Depression of the 1930s were hit even harder when a dust bowl struck the main area of the United States where wheat is grown. A lot of people had to relocate because they could no longer feed themselves nor their families.

There are many reasons crops might fail. Locust swarms, volcanic eruptions, wild fires, droughts, floods, and erosion can all contribute to the loss of food sources. Many ancient civilizations built their culture around agriculture and blamed angry gods for the natural disasters that could destroy their crops. Demeter, Freyr, and Xipe Totec are examples of gods and goddesses who presided over agriculture or relate to the changing seasons.

Today, crop failure isn’t as likely as it once was in the United States, but that doesn’t mean that natural disasters and climate change don’t still pose a threat, though they aren’t caused by angry gods. There are still places where crop failure does happen and to devistating effects on the people in the area. Scientists have worked tirelessly to monitor these places that are most affected by disasters and climate change. Pesticides and even modifying plant genetics have been used to help prevent loss of crops.

Genetically modifying our food isn’t exactly a new practice.

When I was still in college, I took a class on agriculture and how it has evolved over time. There was an entire section on how humans have been selectively modifying our food science the beginning of agricultural practice. Evidence suggests that tomato plants were once very tiny, about the size of peas, but because humans liked having larger fruit to eat, evolved to become much larger. Corn has a green husk wrapped around its seeds. This doesn’t really benefit the plant as it needs the wind to spread the seeds to create the next generation, but it does benefit humans trying to keep birds and insects away from a staple food source.

This isn’t to say that I necessary agree with all modern practices surrounding genetically modified food. There’s a lot of controversy that I don’t want to get into, but I don’t think it’s a bad thing if scientists are able to help create a nutritious sweet potato that also doesn’t require a lot of water to grow, especially in areas prone to droughts. But the belief that the food we eat has always looked or tasted the way we think it does today, isn’t accurate.

Humans learned to cultivate plants through trial and error. Some plants that were once poisonous to us, such as almonds and apples, have become edible. We figured out how to irrigate crops even if it doesn’t rain everyday.

Apples were a later addition to the human diet.

So, if you are doing some world building in fantasy, science fiction, or historical fiction, don’t forget to include some information about the plant life. Which crops are staples of the culture’s diet? It’s usually some type of grain or starch like rice, wheat, corn, or potatoes. Are there any plants people have superstitions about? Does the culture have a god or goddess they worship specifically for agriculture or the changing seasons? Was there once a great disaster that caused major crop failure and led to a mass migration?

It might not seem that important, but small touches like that can really bring a fictional world to life. After all, much of human civilization centers around agriculture and our relationship with the plants that we eat. It’s fascinating how much we rely on plants for our society to function.

I hope you all were able to go outside and spend some time in nature today. Earth Day helps me remember that I’m thankful for the planet we live on and the wonders I find here. Please go out if you can and enjoy what our world has to offer.

If you enjoyed this post (or it really pissed you off), please like, share, and/or leave a comment. I love hearing from my readers and I hope y’all like hearing from me.

Until next week.