[Sca-cooks] Grains of Paradise

[Terry Decker]

I think this may be a questionable speculation, as tribal wars were being 
fought during the period grains of paradise were being imported into Europe. 
In my opinion, a more likely culprit was drought, making the caravan routes 
to the Mediterranean more difficult and deadly.  However, to make reasonably 
accurate opinion, we need to know more about the cultivation and harvesting 
of grains of paradise, their geographical relation to the rulers of the day, 
and who controled the trade and how it was conducted.

Bear

> I've always wondered if we don't see the dropping off of the use of Grains
> of Paradise because of this very thing.  Wars in Africa which cut the 
> trade
> routes so thoroughly and so long that people got out of the habit of using
> them.  Real Pepper began to be available at a semi-reasonable price so 
> that
> by the time Grains of Paradise came back there wasn't a market for them.
>
> Regina