[Sca-cooks] spice trade transit time

[LrdRas at aol.com]

In a message dated 5/14/01 4:32:54 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
TerryD at Health.State.OK.US writes:

<< As a small aside, the return trip of da Gama's first voyage to India took 9
 months and five days from 5 Oct 1498 to 10 July 1499. >>

Is da Gama's voyage really a good example? Since it was mainly political in
nature, I would assume that  he would have been delayed many times to take
care of necessary visits to local dignitaries, etc.  We are also assuming
that the spice trade was controled by Europe early on which is definitely not
the case. Arab merchants traded through Venice for the majority of the middle
ages. It was not until the end of SCA time that the Europeans took any direct
hand in direct spice trading.

A trip around Africa was not necessary for the Arab traders. I would theorize
that throughout most of the SCA time period spices were considerably fresher
and that it was not until the rise of the Portuguese trade in the 16th
century CE that we find spices that were of questionable freshness. Most
certainly, IMO, available Arabian spices were much more potent for the 800+
years before Portugal rounded the African continent.

Ras