From the home of a wealthy Roman in the west of England, not long before the Romans pulled out, comes this fun little pepper mill, complete with settings for ‘just a pinch’/‘spice it up’/‘rip the roof off my mouth’. Anticipating lots of little stories about the Great Silk Road and the Spice Route to the Spice Islands, MacGregor starts by speaking with a chef who explains why we crave this, and most, spices: the alkoid known as piperi, found in all peppers, kick-starts your salivary glands, making food taste better and aiding digestion; it kick-starts your sweat glands, helping regulate body temperature (particularly in warm climates, like the places where peppers usually grow); and it’s involved in a chemical process that helps the body convert glucose into heat, also regulating body temperature. It makes you feel good, and like salt it makes everything taste better. (Gotta admit, I had the best Jaipuri chicken last night at Kashmir, where they cover the meat in spices, bake it in a Tandoor, then sautee it in tomatoes, then in cream, then in yogurt...the number of different tastes, different chemical ideas, offered by this one yummy meal reminded me of a book filled with intriguing ideas, or an opera brimming with great voices and beautiful sounds. What a pleasure.)
The really crazy part is to imagine, not how the pepper pot, but how the pepper itself, would have gotten to Suffolk, where this whole Hoxne household was buried when they had to flee advancing Angles, Saxons, and Jutes in their hordes. (Who were the Jutes, anyway?) At the time, the nearest pepper was grown in India. The trade routes would have had to take it to the Indian Ocean, around to the Red Sea, by caravan across Egypt, in a boat across the Meditteranean, and then by land across Europe to get on a boat across the Channel so these people in the middle of nowhere could enjoy a tasty meal! And that was over a thousand years before the Europeans started getting really serious about establishing modern trade routes. I’d love to know what the local clods—the Celts, slaves, etc.—would have thought of the peppery meal if they’d had a chance to get a taste.
No comments:
Post a Comment