Spice Trade Traditions

The long-distance networks, overland along the Silk Road and by sea across the Indian Ocean, that carried pepper, cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg from South and Southeast Asia to the Mediterranean and the Middle East for millennia, shaping cuisines and, in the Age of Exploration, drawing European powers directly into the trade. The Columbian Exchange later reversed part of the flow, carrying New World spices, chili pepper foremost among them, into Old World cuisines that had never grown it and, within a few centuries, could not imagine cooking without it. Middle Eastern markets sat at the historic crossroads of these routes, and West African cuisine is among the clearest examples of a cuisine transformed by a spice that arrived from the far side of the ocean.