In this brilliant, engrossing work, Jack Turner explores an era--from ancient times through the Renaissance--when 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 globe--and 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

Binding Type: Paperback
Publisher: Vintage
Published: 08/09/2005
ISBN: 9780375707056
Pages: 384
Weight: 0.84lbs
Size: 8.22h x 6.30w x 0.80d

Review Citations: Kliatt 11/01/2005 pg. 32