Get Your Copy Spice: The History Of A TemptationTurner, Jack Drafted By Jack Turner Published As Interactive Edition

facts, passion, the importance of spices never knew that spices could cause even political conflicts, It's to read the book for a historian, a cook and an artist : Great book, Answering a lot of my questions about the movement of spices throughout our history, Interesting reading for those that are into period cooking, Turner organises the book by theme rather than chronology, so it starts off with an exploration of the race to find the distant origins of spice, before explaining in subsequent sections just why people have been so driven by spice indicator of social status, myths about medical properties, economic boom, anxieties about decadence, legendary aphrodisiacs, the substance of the gods, not to mention exoticism in cooking.
The book is surprisingly thoroughly researched too, with the author drawing upon a wealth of sources, Yet for me it never felt dry reading the anecdotes are kept lively and entertaining, Theres some great overlooked historical nuggets in here that I never knew about before and just loved the Emperor Neros gold encrusted peas, for example, or the life of Francisco Serrao, a Portuguese sailor who, when left in charge of an expedition to find and supply spices from the Moluccas back to Portugal, not only succeeded in his task but negotiated an amicable arrangement with the local sultan, married his daughter, and decided to spend the rest of his life out there.
Fascinating stuff. Excellent bookmay be a bit heavy on the Bible quotes, but I strongly recommend it, Thit is book is a wonderful insight into our love affair with spices,from all over the world, I used it as a source book for a talk I have done on spices, the wars,the money and who brought which spices to our shores and how, excellent reference book. It is really a thoroughly documented book, We learn the history of spices and the significant influence they had

on humanity, Author expertise and knowledge is impressive, Really worth reading, particularly the final chapters on the reason why spices have run out of fashion, On the negative side, sometimes it is a bit repetitive, In this brilliant, engrossing work, Jack Turner explores an erafrom ancient times through the Renaissancewhen what we now consider common condiments were valued in gold and blood.


Spices made sour medieval wines palatable, camouflaged the smell of corpses, and served as wedding night aphrodisiacs, Indispensible for cooking, medicine, worship, and the arts of love, they were thought to have magical properties and were so valuable that they were often kept under lock and key.
For some, spices represented Paradise, for others, the road to perdition, but they were potent symbols of wealth and power, and the wish to possess them drove explorers to circumnavigate the globeand even to savagery.


Following spices across continents and through literature and mythology, Spice is a beguiling narrative about the surprisingly vast influence spices have had on human desire.


Includes eight pages of color photographs,

One of the Best Books of the Year: Discover Magazine, The Christian Science Monitor, San Francisco Chronicle.