SC - Spices/history article

[kylie walker]

Came across an article I thought might interest some of you, about a 
research project into the variations in traditional spice use.

The research team looked at differences in spice usage in the traditional 
recipes of different countries and then the relationship between spice use 
and average annual temperature in those countries. They also did literature 
searches on the antibacterial properties of 30 spices found in the recipes, 
finding a positive correlation between the use of "bacterial assassins" and 
warmer climates.

The lead author of the study - Paul Sherman, a professor of behavioral 
ecology at Cornell - theorises that the correlations may have originated in 
the days of cavemen.

This is just a summary of what the article said - for copyright reasons, I 
can't post the actual text, but if anyone is interested, it should have 
appeared in the Washington Post and/or the LA Times. The original research 
article was published in "a recent Bioscience journal", so that might have 
more detailed information the Post article, which was fairly general.

Kylie


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