Cumin, camels, and caravans : a spice odyssey / Gary Paul Nabhan.

By: Material type: TextTextSeries: California studies in food and culture ; 45.Publisher: Berkeley : University of California Press, [2014]Description: xiv, 305 pages : illustrations some color ; 23 cmContent type:
  • text
Media type:
  • unmediated
Carrier type:
  • volume
ISBN:
  • 9780520267206
  • 9780520379244
  • 0520379241
  • 0520267206
  • 9780520956957
  • 0520956958
Subject(s): Genre/Form: DDC classification:
  • 382/.456645 23
LOC classification:
  • HD9210.A2 N33 2014
Other classification:
  • LC 17000
  • ZC 38000
Contents:
Aromas emanating from the driest of places -- Caravans leaving Arabia Felix -- Uncovering hidden outposts in the desert -- Omanis rocking the cradle of civilization -- Mecca and the migrations of Muslim and Jewish traders -- Going east: merging the spice routes with the Silk Roads -- Selling your wares where the sun goes down -- Building bridges between continents and cultures -- From China to Africa: a steady stream of spice traders -- The beginning of the end: Vasco da Gama and the dubious age of discovery -- The drawbridge across the Eastern ocean.
Summary: Gary Paul Nabhan takes the reader on a vivid and far-ranging journey across time and space in this fascinating look at the relationship between the spice trade and culinary imperialism. Drawing on his own family's history as spice traders, as well as travel narratives, historical accounts, and his expertise as an ethnobotanist, Nabhan describes the critical roles that Semitic peoples and desert floras had in setting the stage for globalized spice trade. Traveling along four prominent trade routes--the Silk Road, the Frankincense Trail, the Spice Route, and the Camino Real (for chiles and chocolate)--Nabhan follows the caravans of itinerant spice merchants from the frankincense-gathering grounds and ancient harbors of the Arabian Peninsula to the port of Zayton on the China Sea to Santa Fe in the southwest United States. His stories, recipes, and linguistic analyses of cultural diffusion routes reveal the extent to which aromatics such as cumin, cinnamon, saffron, and peppers became adopted worldwide as signature ingredients of diverse cuisines. Cumin, Camels, and Caravans demonstrates that two particular desert cultures often depicted in constant conflict--Arabs and Jews--have spent much of their history collaborating in the spice trade and suggests how a more virtuous multicultural globalized society may be achieved in the future.
Item type: BOOK List(s) this item appears in: Omani stories
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Current library Call number Vol info Copy number Status Date due Barcode
Sultan Qaboos Cultural Center Library NEW ACQUISITION HD9210.A2 N33 2014 (Browse shelf(Opens below)) V. Copy 1 Available 197013498

Includes bibliographical references (pages 279-292) and index.

Aromas emanating from the driest of places -- Caravans leaving Arabia Felix -- Uncovering hidden outposts in the desert -- Omanis rocking the cradle of civilization -- Mecca and the migrations of Muslim and Jewish traders -- Going east: merging the spice routes with the Silk Roads -- Selling your wares where the sun goes down -- Building bridges between continents and cultures -- From China to Africa: a steady stream of spice traders -- The beginning of the end: Vasco da Gama and the dubious age of discovery -- The drawbridge across the Eastern ocean.

Gary Paul Nabhan takes the reader on a vivid and far-ranging journey across time and space in this fascinating look at the relationship between the spice trade and culinary imperialism. Drawing on his own family's history as spice traders, as well as travel narratives, historical accounts, and his expertise as an ethnobotanist, Nabhan describes the critical roles that Semitic peoples and desert floras had in setting the stage for globalized spice trade. Traveling along four prominent trade routes--the Silk Road, the Frankincense Trail, the Spice Route, and the Camino Real (for chiles and chocolate)--Nabhan follows the caravans of itinerant spice merchants from the frankincense-gathering grounds and ancient harbors of the Arabian Peninsula to the port of Zayton on the China Sea to Santa Fe in the southwest United States. His stories, recipes, and linguistic analyses of cultural diffusion routes reveal the extent to which aromatics such as cumin, cinnamon, saffron, and peppers became adopted worldwide as signature ingredients of diverse cuisines. Cumin, Camels, and Caravans demonstrates that two particular desert cultures often depicted in constant conflict--Arabs and Jews--have spent much of their history collaborating in the spice trade and suggests how a more virtuous multicultural globalized society may be achieved in the future.