HERB - Article of interest(spices)

[Kathleen Keeler]

Christine A Seelye-King wrote:

> <snippage of many interesting theories about spice useage>
>
> This was very interesting and I am saving it in my Spices and Seasonings
> file, but I just have one question.   Did the authors of the study
> consider the question that people may use spices because they taste good?
>
> Christianna

Yes, by that point in the article I was tiring:  they say if so spice chemicals
should be highly palatable.  Then they point out that while some spices appeal
to everyone, many (garlic, ginger, anise, the chilis) are distasteful to most
people especially children.  "the capasaicin receptor is a heat-activated
channel in the pain pathway" [ie chilis cause pain, we just learn to like it]
So initially we responded negatively to spices and later learned to like them.
And, that wouldn't explain the increased spice use in hot countries compared to
cold, which rates of meat spoilage does.

I think adaptation is cool, but the paper's scenarios on how people came to use
spices are not compelling to me.  I don't see anything particularly wrong with
them, but I'm not sold on them either.  So for me the paper is especially
useful for the data--they do show spices inhibit bacteria and they do show warm
country cookbooks have more spices than cool country cookbooks, for
example--but "why" is less convincing.  You could of course put flavors on that
you like and inadvertently inhibit bacteria, and "like" that flavor better than
the one where you put on a spice that didn't inhibit bacteria so it tasted
worse as the meat rotted.
So you did it by taste, at least consciously.

One interesting thing for us that might follow from their argument is that
spicing in a particular traditional cuisine should get more stringent with
time, because the decay organisms can (and do, consider the E. coli and
Salmonella that are in our foods these days) adapt to whatever level of spice
you use, so that more will be needed for the same amount of inhibition.  Does
Period cuisine of say Italy have fewer spices earlier?  I know there's not much
data, but maybe Romans vs 1000 vs 1500?  The meat preservation technology
didn't have improved much over that period did it?

Cheers
Agnes
kkeeler1 at unl.edu

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