Spicy history
I finished Jack Turner’s Spice: The History of a Temptation yesterday. Overall, I really enjoyed it. It’s quite an idiosyncratic history, and deliberately so – writing about absolutely everything to do with spice, even just in western Europe and/or just in the Middle Ages would be an incomprehensibly huge project, I would imagine. So he hasn’t done that: although he does go into great detail in some things, in others he skips over stuff a bit. He does seem to have a fairly good bibliography at the back, so I guess if you were so inclined you could chase stuff up yourself.
The first part is about the spice race – Columbus, Magellan, and their cohort, who opened up the world for Europeans – at least the western ones – all, or at least partly, in the name of spice, I love the idea of Portugese or Spanish explorer getting to Malabar or other such places and finding Italian merchants already there; the look on their faces must have been priceless… much like the spice there were seeking.
The second part focusses on the palate – the thing that I was expecting most of the book to look at, to be honest, despite the fact that I know spices were used in incense etc. Anyway, this section was really interesting: it looked at recipes, it looked at how spice helped to create/maintain class distinction; discredits the idea that spice was used in the Middle Ages to hide the taste of rotting meat (it was rich people who used spice – do you think rich people would be eating rotting meat in the first place? It was at least partly to hide the taste of the salt used in curing the meat, probably).
The third part focussed on the body, in two ways: spice in medicine, and spice for love. Starting with cloves being shoved up Ramses II’s nose, as part of the mummification process, and then talking about the whole idea of pomanders and bad air (mal aria…) being respondible for disease. The section on spice as aphrodisiac was quite funny. And almost entirely male-centred – the remedies suggested, that is, not Turner’s treatment of it, since he himself points it out.
Part four is on the spirit: the use of spice in incense, for example. It mostly focussed, though, on the changing attitude of Christians towards spice in worship. The earliest Church fathers thought it was ok-ish – Christians were often anointed with spices for burial, since Christ was. Then people went a bit off it, because after all if God is incorporeal then presumably he doesn’t enjoy pleasant smells (personally I think this is a daft argument: so you’re limiting what God is able to do, then?). This is a very, very brief overview, of course.
The last chapter is called “Some Like it Bland,” which is a great heading. It talks about the movement – slowly – against spices, for a range of reasons, including that it was a drain of resources away from Europe towards those nasty, decadent Easterners; plus, interestingly, he links the development of the nation-state and national sentiment to the development of a national cuisine, which makes sense, and in England at least this led to a bland cuisine they were proud of, contrasting it with those very spices their forebears used to love.
As I said, this is a ridiculously brief overview, but it gives an idea what the book was about. It’s really well written, and a lot of fun to read; Turner’s not afraid of pointing out the humorous and ridiculous nature of some of the things he discusses.
Hell, and the history thereof
As I cook an enormous lasagne to feed a 5 year old and 4 year old tonight (and their parents), I’m catching up on my “In our Time” podcasts. At the moment it’s “The history of hell,” which is interesting for a whole load of reasons. But something that just struck me: Bosch and Luther were contemporaries! Fascinating.
Now they’re talking about the fact that in many early traditions, hell was freezing, rather than being, with the speculation that this is some sort of folk memory of the change, 10,000 years ago, from the last Ice Age. Apparently – and I don’t know who thinks this – there is an idea that the Ice Age changed over just 10 years or so, such that people would experience it very obviously.
And now they’re talking about Heart of Darkness The Waste Land. The idea of the journey down the Congo, to the supervisor at the inner station, who might be described as a modern Tiresias. Now that is a really, really interesting idea.
Spice, and Spice Girls
I’ve been hearing the Spice Girls song, “Stop”, a lot recently, at school. This has a weird effect on me. A group of girls at college used to do the moves to this song all the time, and consequently when I hear it I have a vision of them doing so – and an urge to join in. Mainly to upset the kiddies.
What made me think of this is the book I am reading: Spice: The History of a Temptation, by Jack Turner. It’s very enjoyable – although I am dubious of his repeated use of the term ‘Dark Ages’ in referring to the time after the (now) official end of the Western Roman Empire. Nonetheless. He has a whole chapter, of course on spice and sex: looking at all the different ways it was recommended to use spice to improve sex in a variety of ways, as well as the problems the more prudish (and supposedly celibate) members of the community had with it. Throughout, he makes comments on some of the things that have lasted to the modern day, and towards the end he comments on the Spice Girls, saying they “shot like a gaudy, squawking comet through the outer orbits of pop stardom before, in obedience to the Newtonian physics of celebrity, the acrimonious plummet back to earth and bust-up.” Beautiful. No wonder he writes about spice; he certainly has the language for it.
Reading at the moment
1. Just finished Lady Friday, by Garth Nix.
2. History of Spice, by … someone…
3. the Theory and Practice of Communism, by RN Carew Hunt
Pretty much sums up my reading habits, really… fantasy, history, food, and technology.
That’s me.
BBC History: Feb 2007
Since the March edition arrived today, I thought I should finally finish the Feb edition. Some of the highlights:
An overview of the Basque issue – I’ve been fascinated by Basques since I was at school; I loved Mark thingo’s book about how Basques changed the world.
Two contrasting articles about the Suffragettes – one that essentially argued that they were essentially terrorists, and they didn’t have much popular support; the other saying that view is a load of bollocks. As a chick, I found it troubling to have the women who I thought had gained me my right to vote might be terrorists. One woman’s terrorist is another’s freedom fighter… I’m not sure where I stand on this issue now. I definitely don’t hold with violence at any time, and never have, but the question of whether violence was necessary to gain suffrage… we’ll never know, I do certainly approve of exploding (tee hee) too-rosy mythology about historical events, especially ones so recent and still so pertinent.
The article on ‘the ghost that convicted the bishop’ was a bizarre look into the mindset of at some people in the seventeenth century… and a rather dismal look at the state of the church.
One of the big article is about Little Bighorn, and the possibility that one main reason why Custer was defeated was because his deputy Capt Benteen hated his guts. I am a military history baby, and the detailed stuff about directions etc really don’t work for me (the map helped a bit), but the stuff about how the two men interacted was quite interesting.
Another big article was about Klaus Fuchs, who passed nuclear secrets from the Anglo-American research he was involved in onto the USSR. Complements a BBC series, which hopefully the ABC will pick up sometime; very interesting because it mostly looked at his motivations and attitudes.
Two articles about Tudors – 1534, when Henry VIII officially decalred his ’empire’, and the consequences of this for the entire British Isles and Ireland… and a quick look at how Elizabeth I treated Dudley, and how she was regarded because of it, compared with Catherine of Russia and Potemkin, and Anne Stuart and the Churchills.
Much fun!
Ivanhoe
If the 1997 (?) adaptation of Ivanhoe is accurate, then I know a few things about Walter Scott:
1. He didn’t like the Templars.
2. He didn’t much like most of his characters.
3. He was a vicious old bugger who liked inflicting, or at least imagining, pain on other people.
I really enjoyed the portrayal of John. Young, childish, scared, weak – with a streak of ruthless cruelty. The scene with Richard, John and Eleanor is hilarious, with her treating her sons like children and ordering them around… just a pity that it was so ahistorical, since Richard was her favourite and she would have had problems with Richard spending little time in England in favour of Aquitaine, as he did. Which brings in the other ahistorical bit, with Richard and John both being abe to communicate with the Saxons very easily… unlikely, since neither of them spoke English, and I doubt that many of the Saxons – the peasants, anyway – spoke Norman. But, tut; so many people make these assumptions.
I really enjoyed Blois Guibert’s character – he was so very bad, and then to twist his heart in such a way as to make him fall for Rebecca was a terrible, tragic thing. And Christopher Lee as the Grand Master – superb!
I bought a second-hand copy of the book a while ago… not sure I can read it any time soon, now.
Nicholas and Alexandra
As I mentioned a while ago, we put on a showing on this film at school for the kids doing Revolutions (we’re doing Russia, of course, and eventually China, which is a bit scary for me…). Very few turned up, which was a bit disappointing, but since I hadn’t seen it it was at least a good chance for me to watch it.
It was made in 1982, and it moves very slowly. Very slowly. If it wasn’t for the historical aspect, I would go so far as to say that it was very boring. Except for the point at which I realised that Ra-Ra-Rasputin was played by Tom Baker; that was a very funny moment, almost brain-messingly so.
The most interesting part was how the relationship between Nicky and ‘Sunny’ (I think that was her nickname) was shown… which makes sense, given the title. Most of the time, she is shown as completely domineering, which I think does indeed have some historical evidence to back it up. There are a few occasions where Nicky stands up to her, but very few. And Nicky’s reaction when he has to admit his abdication to Alexandra – it was amazing, and heartbreaking, and horrifying as well – that he broke down, and seemed almost to have a nervous breakdown, I think from the sheer shame of the event. I wonder how much evidence there is to support that idea.
We didn’t get to the end – it was hometime right when Lenin started doing his April Theses thing. Related to this is one of my biggest beefs with the film: I don’t think Trotsky had anything to do with Lenin and the Bolsheviks in 1905 – in fact, not even by 1917, really – and yet in the film they are shown together right back as far as Bloody Sunday, almost. Pft.
Kerensky was probably my favourite bit-part. Possibly because I think he is in ‘real life’, too.
Zero, and all that
I’m reading Zero: Biography of a Dangerous Idea at the moment. It’s spinning my head a little bit, and I have to admit that I am skipping the serious maths bits. But it is enjoyable, and it is truly bizarre to think about the consequences of zero and infinity in maths, physics, and… everything else…. I should finish it tonight; I’ll write more about it once my brain recovers.
Kit Marlowe
I’ve just finished reading a book I picked up in Cambridge called The Reckoning: The Murder of Christopher Marlowe. I’ve always loved Kit Marlowe and the stories and conspiracies around him; one of the best college plays I ever saw was a take on his Faust, done with 1930s clothes and a very dark theme song (the Garbage song from Romeo and Juliet done only with sax and bass).
Anyway, this is Charles Nicholl’s attempt to find as much as information as he can about the people who were actually present at Marlowe’s death (Frizer, Skeres and Poley), their various connections and dealings iin life, and make some sense of them. He’s also found as much information as he can about Marlowe and his possible/probable spying efforts.
There is a lot of information gathered here. Some of it at least may have been more suited to a book on spies in Elizabethan times, which I still would have read anyway, although I can see the point of including most of it here – good background, shows just what sort of people were involved, and lends weight to Nicholl’s idea that it wasnt just a drunken brawl over the bill that left Marlowe with a dagger in his eye.
I’m not entirely convinced by Nicholl’s final ideas, which is that Marlowe was being set up in order to discredit Walter Raleigh (who was indeed jailed for treason about a decade later – Marlowe was killed in 1593). Marlowe’s connections to Raleigh seemed a bit tenuous, and even more so did the reasons for wanting to bring Raleigh down. Maybe I am too straight-forward a thinker that I can’t get my head around the convolutions that seemed to be involved in Elizabethan politics (and probably are today, in the murkier side of things).
I enjoyed it as a book. It’s easy to read, although I got lost a few times trying to keep up with who was who and how they were connected, although Nicholls does a fair job of keeping the reader up to speed with little reminders about info that has come before, which was most welcome. As I said, not entirely convinced that Raleigh was ultimately the reason for his death, but I am definitely willing to believe that there was some dastardly conspiracy behind it all.
On a related note, the last board you read as go out of the Globe in London is about the whole Shakespeare and authorship issue. Marlowe is, of course, mentioned… and there are leaflets for the Marlowe Society next to the board. I love that.
Ivanhoe
I am in the middle of Ivanhoe, the TV show. I thought it was much older than it is – it was made in 1997! And there was me thinking there were parts that looked like Monty Python’s Holy Grail! Oops.
I am definitely enjoying it… I got Scott’s book at a second hand book sale ages ago, but haven’t got around to reading it yet. Of course. The romantic entanglements have me very confused about exactly how it will all be resolved in the end. Well, one of them is dead, so I guess that helps… .
Randomly Yours, Alex 