[Sca-cooks] black pepper wars

[Phil Troy / G. Tacitus Adamantius]

Also sprach Susan Fox-Davis:
>Samrah wrote:
>
>>When my kid brother was in college, probably a good 15 years ago 
>>now, he took a class and found that sometime in period, somewhere 
>>in period wars were raged over black pepper.  We seem to have lost 
>>the class notes.
>It occurs to me to wonder, are we going to face new spice wars or 
>shortages?  What are the spice exports of Sumatra, Indonesia and the 
>other Tsunami-torn regions?  Salt water in the water table is said 
>to be killing palm trees but it occured to me that it won't do much 
>good for other plants either.

In theory, you're probably right. It remains to be seen, though, how 
many of our spices now come from places like the Caribbean. For 
example, I know they're growing nutmeg [and mace -- obviously] in 
Greneda, ginger in places like Haiti and Jamaica, etc.

Whether these are considered more botanical curiosities than viable 
industrial alternatives, I don't know. It's also possible that 
somebody has sufficient warehouses full of whole spices that the 
world market can absorb the effects of these disastrous times without 
a total cessation of product flow.

But I'm speculating here.

Adamantius

-- 




"S'ils n'ont pas de pain, vous fait-on dire, qu'ils  mangent de la 
brioche!" / "If there's no bread to be had, one has to say, let them 
eat cake!"
	-- attributed to an unnamed noblewoman by Jean-Jacques 
Rousseau, "Confessions", 1782

"Why don't they get new jobs if they're unhappy -- or go on Prozac?"
	-- Susan Sheybani, assistant to Bush campaign spokesman Terry 
Holt, 07/29/04