Spices & the Trade Routes
For centuries, spice was worth its weight in silver and shaped empires. Follow the trade routes that carried flavour across continents, meet the spices history forgot, and step into the golden-age kitchens of Baghdad, Byzantium, the Mughals and the Ottoman court.
Frequently asked questions
- What was silphium and why did it vanish?
- Silphium was a prized seasoning and medicine from ancient Cyrene, so valued it appeared on coins. It grew wild in one narrow region, resisted cultivation, and was harvested to extinction by around the first century CE — a lost flavour we can no longer taste.
- What moved along the Silk Road besides silk?
- Spices, dried fruit, rice, sugar, tea and cooking techniques travelled the routes alongside silk — carrying flavours like long pepper and asafoetida, and whole cuisines, between China, Persia, the Arab world and Europe.
- What was the food of the Abbasid court like?
- Tenth-century Baghdad had the world's first great restaurant-and-cookbook culture: elaborate sweet-and-sour stews, rosewater and saffron, candied fruits and dishes recorded in books like the Kitab al-Tabikh.