Culinary use, cosmetic power and medicinal remedy

At first glance, their insignificant appearance and diminutive size belie the prodigious power that spices have had to influence our history.

Besides the originality and individuality they endow to our dishes, spices have served as currency, prompted territorial conquest, provoked wars and transformed our social habits.

Spices seduce us with their intriguing smell and taste, capable of improving the organoleptic proper-ties of our recipes and transforming the humblest raw ingredients by enhancing their flavour, colour and aroma.

Due to their antiseptic properties, they have played an important role in the pantry of many civilisations. Before domestic refrigerators came into our lives (around the1930s), they helped solve an important problem, that of prolonging the shelf life of food. In addition to their culinary value, aromatic herbs and spices are major cosmetic and medicinal ingredients. Their essential oils have anti-microbial, anti-parasitic, healing and anti-inflammatory properties, ensuring that they have always formed part of the traditional pharmacopoeia.

However, our interest in them is not solely due to their culinary or medicinal virtues.

Cloaked in mystery when they arrived by boat or from the East in caravans, they bore an invisible cargo; a load full of superstitions and myths that attributed them with magical, miraculous powers. The merchants who traded in these exotic ingredients from distant, unknown lands heightened the legends surrounding them with contrived narratives in an attempt to protect their business from potential competitors.