Dec 26, 2024
this is absurdly pedantic i know but i think it's kind of dumb when people say that spices like ginger, clove, cinnamon, nutmeg, etc being traditional in european holiday recipes (think gingerbread and its thousands of variations) is the product of colonialism. like yeah sure colonialism helped make those spices more cheaply available and therefore widespread in europe but come on, europeans were trading across asia and north africa for those very same spices for centuries before modern transcontinental empires existed
#yes there were fewer people with access to those spices in europe prior to the establishment of giant european colonial empires#but that's largely because they were even more ridiculously expensive in the medieval era and earlier than the early modern era#precisely Because of the no colonial empire yet thing?#europe could not produce those spices themselves (or force colonies to produce them for the homeland)#so they paid the premiums to the traders and merchants who actually caravanned the stuff over the silk road#which is expensive#but like. idk man. we have medieval gingerbread recipes! they're not terribly similar to modern gingerbread no but still chock full of spic#and moreover those same spices are found EVERYWHERE in medieval recipes even when it's not 'holiday' food#(it Is generally Rich People Food. but the rich were the ones who had things written down about them)#medieval european recipes are real wacky compared to modern european cuisine esp when it comes to the use of spices and sugar#but anyway#yes i acknowledge that the desire to secure and control spice production and trade was a significant factor in european colonialism#but let's not pretend that it was european colonialism specifically that like. caused the very existence of spices in xmas cookies or w/e#(plus as i might point out it's not only europeans who traded for and highly prized exotic spices even in the premodern era lol)#anyway. rant over. this isn't directed at anything i've seen here it's about an offhand comment in a youtube recipe video#just something that kind of bugged me#colonialism certainly facilitated the modern day euro/american relationship to those spices but it didn't introduce them outright#reblogs are off bc i don't trust tumblr sorryyy
