January 2025

THE SPICE OF LIFE

In modern kitchens we give little thought to the origins of the vast array of spices we have at our disposal: cinnamon, paprika, nutmeg, cloves, pepper – the list is endless. 

But that may well change for anyone who reads The Spice Ports: Mapping the Origins of Global Sea Trade by Nicholas Nugent, an evocative and sumptuously illustrated history of how these spices became part of our culinary lives. 

Nugent describes how his passionate interest in spices developed: ‘More than fifty years ago, after graduating from Cambridge, I went to work in Indonesia as a volunteer for the United Nations Children’s Fund, UNICEF. Having learnt the Indonesian language I was assigned “in the field” as liaison officer for Eastern Indonesia, an area that includes the fabled spice islands. There I came across the remarkable story of how cloves and nutmeg were once highly sought after by colonial powers because of the strong demand in Europe. Each spice grew nowhere else in the world except a small number of islands in what was then known as The Malay Archipelago, which I have dubbed the Clove Islands and the Nutmeg Islands.

‘European demand for these spices drove the development of ship-building, cartography and navigation and led to the science of economics with their focus on supply and demand and the power of the monopoly. Curiously, they also fuelled fine art and literature. This was a story that I resolved to tell one day.’

After giving up full-time employment with the BBC, Nugent  started to research the story and discovered a treasure trove of more fascinating facts: how the Dutch ‘stole a lead’ in trade with Asia by harnessing the wind to build ships faster and cheaper than the Portuguese; how the English and the Dutch swapped territory to help preserve the nutmeg monopoly; how Galileo popularised the telescope among seafarers but only just avoided being executed by the Catholic Church for his insistence that the Earth rotated around the Sun, rather than the other way round as the Bible alleged; how Magellan’s sailors invented, or maybe discovered, the International Dateline. These and many other stories are contained in The Spice Ports.  

The particular appeal of this book is the high quality of the illustrations and maps, which Nugent regards as ‘the eye of history’. He dismisses any suggestion that putting together such a complex narrative might have been daunting. 

‘Far from being a challenge it has been a delight learning such history which I wanted to share. This was helped by my hobby collecting antique maps of the ports and regions featured, since maps tell their own stories.  My publishers, the British Library in the UK and Brandeis University Press in the US, agreed that the illustrations appear alongside the stories they illustrate.

‘I have visited all the ports featured as part of my research, and have lived at three (out of twelve) of them, as well as most of the lesser ports featured. Only St Helena has eluded my so far, but one day…’ 

The Spice Ports Mapping the Origins of Global Sea Trade

Nugent began writing his book in 1999 so it has taken him 25 years to complete and to collect the necessary illustrations – more than half of which are from his own collection.

To understand the story of the international trade in spices, Nugent considers it important to place the ports involved in historical context and be aware of the hardships of early travel. He reminds us how in the late Middle Ages, around 1450, any form of international trade was exceedingly limited. In Europe travel by land was on horseback or in a horse-drawn carriage and further east by donkey, mule or camel. Until the invention of the steamship in the 1830s, all sea travel was powered by wind, or in the Mediterranean Sea by oarsmen. When early explorers like Marco Polo set off on their travels they knew that there was no guarantee they would see their families again, and many did not. 

Nugent tracks how the trade in spices led to modern-day globalisation and maritime communication, which brought benefits beyond culinary delights: the spread of ideas on art, literature and science. Yet he does not romanticise the development of the spice trade and highlights how each of the European nations who were engaged in the trade then attempted to maximise their profits, first by enslaving local people, and later by transporting labourers between continents to work as slaves.

The main ports involved in the oriental spice trade are covered in the bookin the order in which they rose to prominenceand prosperedas a result of long-distant trade. Chapters are devoted to specific ports and inland cities which played a crucial role in the growth of the global spice trade.

To help us fully appreciate the spice story, Nugent reminds us about the bland European diet prevalent in the early seventeenth century. ‘This book requires us to take a leap backwards to an age when the spices we now take for granted were a novelty to most households. Only then can we understand the significance of the innovative discoveries that brought them to European and American markets: the technology of building and powering ships, the navigational skills needed to harness wind power and tackle the seas, maps and the cartographical skills to draw them, knowledge of astronomy and time and their role in navigation, and the development of the telescope.’

This wide-ranging account of a fascinating period of global history makes full use of original maps and contemporary artists’ views to tell the story of how each port developed, while also encouraging us to consider contrasting points of view of the benefits and the damages of the maritime spice trade. Nugent’s most important contribution is in opening our eyes to the all-encompassing impact of the spice trade on every aspect of human activity, and his book makes us recognise that every spice we use daily in our kitchens has a long, colourful and dramatic back story.

Rita Payne, born in Assam, India, is President Emeritus of the Commonwealth Journalists Association, and former Asia Editor, BBC World News (TV)