Peppers, Nutmeg, and Cloves

An assortment of spices, including pepper, nutmeg, cloves and ginger.

The Age of Discovery was ushered in by a global search for spices such as peppers, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, and ginger, which, once valuable luxury items used for food preservation and flavoring, are now common household products.  Such spices were so valuable in Medieval Europe that a mere pound of dried pepper could buy the freedom of a serf bound to a nobleman's estate.  During the last four years of the Middle Ages, merchants from Venice had a complete monopoly over the spice trade, so in 1400, the Portuguese looked for an alternative route to India, which was the origin of the spice market.  By 1498, Portuguese explorer Vasco de Gama had reached India by sailing around the southern tip of Africa, and five years later would return with an army that would conquer the Indian kingdom of Calicut. This was the start of a Portuguese empire that would eventually stretch from Indonesia, through India and Africa, to Brazil.

The Spanish monarchy was also eager to get involved in the spice trade, so in 1492, Genoese navigator Christopher Columbus was financed by King Ferdinand V and Queen Isabella of Spain to sail an even more radical route in hopes of reaching India faster.  He sailed westward with three ships and landed on an island in the Caribbean Ocean, naming the islands the West Indies. The New World had been discovered.  On a second journey to the West Indies, Columbus found a new kind of pepper called the chili pepper.  Within fifty years the new spice had been incorporated into local cuisines around the world, but what is it exactly that gives the pepper its hot, fiery sensation when we eat it?  Some believe that the shape of the molecules piperine, found in both black and white pepper, and capsaicin, found in chili peppers, has some effect on our nerves which is currently unknown.  Both molecules have a single aromatic ring, a chain of carbon atoms, and a NC=O group.  Another molecule, zingerone (found in ginger), also has the aromatic ring and carbon chain, but has no NC=O group.

The English and Dutch also began to enter the spice trade, making the market fiercely competitive.  Yet again the Spanish sought out another route to the east by going west, so they commisioned Portuguese mariner Ferdinand Magellan to sail around the world starting west.  After sailing down the coast of South America and around its southern tip through the Strait of Magellan, the fleet finally reached the Pacific Ocean.  During a short landfall in the Philipine Islands however, Magellan was killed in a skirmish with the natives, but his crew pressed on.  Eventually, three years after they had left, the crew reached Spain once more with only one out of the five original ships and eighteen sailors out of the original 265.  The first journey around the world had been made and at a great cost, just for a little spice.

Pepper wasn't the only sought-after spice, however.  Cloves and nutmeg also contain molecules that, like zingerone, contain a single aromatic ring and a carbon chain.  Cloves had been used in the Chinese imperial court as sweeteners since ancient times and nutmeg soon became the center of a conflict between the English and the Dutch that would forever change history.  The Dutch had a nearly complete monopoly over the nutmeg trade; the only thing left to take was the English-held Banda islands.  After the English attacked the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam, now New York, the Dutch attacked the Banda islands, and war ensued.  In 1667 a treaty that ended the war gave the Dutch the Banda islands, giving them complete control of the nutmeg market, and also gave the English the rights to the island of Manhattan.  Without the nutmeg trade, New York may have ended up remaining in the hands of the Dutch, which would have greatly affected American history.

As you can see, the demand for spices as preservatives and food-flavoring, fueled a global search that ushered in the Age of Discovery.  The pepper's piperine and capsaicin molecules, ginger's zingerone, the eugenol in cloves, and the isoeugenol in nutmeg all possess similar characteristics that may cause the fiery sensation we get from them that, in part, caused this demand in the first place.  Other spicy products also follow this pattern.  The safrole in sassafras and other molecules found in peppers, nutmeg, and cloves such as myristicin and elemicin fall into this category as well, further confirming the hypothesis that the shape of the molecule affects the taste.  Regardless, the demand for spices has forever changed the course of history and has given us cause to explore the earth we live on.