[Sca-cooks] spice trade transit time

[James Prescott]

At 12:23 -0500 2001-05-13, Decker, Terry D. wrote:
> Thorvald, you wanted information about sea transit times in the spice trade.

Many thanks for the excellent information.


> It was a fast but dangerous passage requiring extensive
> blue water sailing.  I found this interesting because it is in direct
> opposition to a common idea that the Mediterranean sailors were primarily
> coastal sailors spending nights on the shore.

A very widely believed semi mis-perception.  It seems to have been
largely true of the Classical Greek oared vessels, and continued to
be true for many other kinds of Mediterranean ship, oared and sailed,
right down to the present day.  However, by Roman times if not earlier
some vessels such as the grain ships from Egypt to Ostia (Rome) went
'direct' rather than coasting.

It _was_ true that the Mediterranean sailors were "primarily coastal
sailors", as long as the emphasis is on "primarily" rather than
"exclusively".  It also seems that while light coastal ships might
be pulled up on the shore at night, most heavier vessels would have
anchored and the crew would have stayed on board.

See e.g. Bass "A History of Seafaring" and Lewis et al "European
Naval and Maritime History, 300-1500".


  Side note: Once one overcomes the fear of sailing out of sight of
  land, and has acquired a sufficient store of no-landmark navigation
  skills (see e.g. Lewis "We, the Navigators"), it is actually much
  safer to be well out into blue water than to be near a coast.


> The Akhbar al-Sin w-al-Hind (mid 9th Century) gives a sailing time from
> Muscat to Canton of 120 days or:
>
> Musqat to Kulam Mali - 1 lunar month
> Kulam to Kalah Bar - 1 month
> Kalah to Sanf Fulaw - 1 month
> Sanf  Fulaw to Canton - 1 month
>
> Kulam Mali is a port on the Malabar coast.  Kalah Bar equates roughly to
> Kedah, Malaya.  Sanf Fulaw was part of the Champa kingdom in eastern
> Indo-China (South Vietnam?)

We can probably drop the last two legs when considering the spices of
Indonesia bound for the Middle East or Europe; though we have to add
again some allowance of time for those spices that were only available
from more easterly islands in what is now Indonesia.  They would have
to travel from there to (say) Kalah Bar.

It is certainly a faster transit time that I would have guessed.  It
may have been qualified with "given favourable winds", which would mean
that in some years such voyages could have taken much longer due to
having to wait for the favourable winds.  Still, quite rapid.


> Among the shipping
> containers used by this fleet were thousands of large terracotta jars and
> smaller glazed jars (similar to ginger jars) for storing spices and to be
> traded.

Interesting.  I wonder how widely such jars would have been used, if at
all, for spices destined for Europe.  And if they were used, whether
they would have helped preserve flavour.


> So my best guess is that spices were no more than 1 year to 1 1/2 years old
> when they were sold in Europe with the possible exception of the Early
> Medieval period.  Of course, this doesn't address the issue of shelf time
> after they were sold.

If they were bought as soon as they arrived, and used soon after that,
a year or a year and a half would lead only to moderate staleness, yes?

If spices were shipped whole, or if they were sealed in jars (the
possibility is hinted at by the Chinese example), or both, then I
would venture to guess that at least some cooks could have had quite
fresh spices for use, at least occasionally.


Does anyone else have further information to add?

Thorvald