The Trojan fleet is ready, equipped with arms and men; soon oar and breeze will make swift our way. Like a great queen you will make your progress through the Dardanian towns, and the common crowd will think a new goddess come to earth; wherever you advance your steps, flames will consume the cinnamon, and the slain victim will strike the bloody earth.
Ovid (Publius Ovidius Naso) (43 BCE - 18 CE). Heroides, Letter XVI (Paris to Helen). Translated by Grant Showerman. Loeb Classical Library Volume 41. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1931. Online: http://www.theoi.com/Text/OvidHeroides1.html .
Figure 1: Cover of the Sears "Grocery Catalog" for 1915
Nobody actually needs cinnamon. Nobody needs cloves. Nobody needs nutmeg or allspice or cardamom or black pepper or saffron or cumin or ginger or any other spice:
"One might live a a perfectly healthy life without ever ingesting, inhaling or otherwise being exposed to any one of the desiccated bits of vegetation that have traditionally been considered spices" (Keay 2006, p. xii).And yet we've been using spices (and herbs) for literally thousands of years. There's evidence of people using black pepper (Piper spp.) in Thailand as early as 9,000 years ago (see Gorman 1971; Solheim 1972), and using garlic mustard (Alliaria petiolata) in Europe 7,000 years ago (see Saul et al. 2013). Cloves (Syzygium aromaticum) have been found in what is now Iraq dating back to 1721 BCE (Turner 2004, p. xv). Black peppercorns (Piper nigrum) were found stuffed up the nose of the Pharaoh Rameses II (1303-1213 BCE; they were used as part of funerary rites), and the Emperor Justinian (482-565 CE) was embalmed with spices (see Turner 2004, p. 145).
Necessary or not, we crave our spices. We've historically used spices in four ways:
- Religion
- Medicine
- Preservation
- Pleasure
The medicinal qualities of spices are highly disputed, but there is some evidence that cinnamon may have anti-cancer (Long et al. 2015) and anti-oxidant properties (Skulas-Ray 2011), fenugreek may help ease cold symptoms (Cedars Sinai Medical Center 1999) and diabetes (Griffith University 2007), and turmeric may prevent liver damage (Baghdasaryan et al. 2010).
The idea that spices can be used as a preservative is actually fairly contentious. It's commonly stated, for example, that in the Middle Ages Europeans used spices to disguise the flavor of rotting meat. This is tremendously unlikely:
"Spices ... of themselves ... have very few preservative properties...experimentation suggests that far from disguising the disgusting, spices may...actually exaggerate it" (Keay 2006, pp. 27-28).On the other hand, in the same book Turner states that ancient Egyptian embalmers used spices because they were effective at "slowing or killing the bacteria that cause decomposition" (2004, p. 147), and that "it was not until the nineteenth century, with the development of formaldehyde and the improvement of techniques of arterial embalming" that the use of spices in European burials ended (204, p. 308). It seems this is a question that definitely has not been settled.
"Anyone willing to believe that medieval Europeans lived on a diet of spiced and rancid meat has never tried to cover the taste of advanced decomposition with spices" (Turner 2004, p. 109).
At last we come to pleasure. Spices make us happy. They "transform boring food" (Keay 2006 p. 27). In the middle ages spices "were a signpost of ... class ... spices meant nobility" (Turner 2004, pp. 132-133). Spices were quite literally "status symbols" (Keay 2006, p. 251), and the "value [of spices] ... depended not on need but on desire, and ... the human obsession with social prestige" (Keay 2006, p. 31).
We may not need spices, but we want them. We are willing to pay for them. And at times we've paid a lot for spices.
A lot.
According to Pliny the Elder (23-79 CE), the Roman Empire spent a great deal of its wealth on foreign goods, including spices: "in no year does India drain our empire of less than five hundred and fifty millions of sesterces"1 (The Natural History 6:26). Pliny might complain, but for the last few thousand years most wealthy people would have considered that quite reasonable: "During the heyday of the pepper trade the spice was more valuable than gold and silver" (Shaffer 2013, p. 26), and "exotic and expensive luxuries were, after piety and war, the chief expenses of the aristocracy" (Turner 2004, p. 95). .
Starting in the 1500s European powers began trading in spices from South and Southeast Asia, accumulating insane profits. How insane?
"In the Banda Islands ten pounds of nutmeg cost less than one English penny. In London, that same spice cost more than £2.10s -- a mark-up of a staggering 60,000 percent" (Milton 1999, p. 6)2Even Vasco da Gama, on the very first European voyage to India in 1498, made a profit of 3,000% on spices, despite losing half his men and one third of his fleet (see Halsall 1998).
"[Nutmeg] sold in Amsterdam at around 12,000 percent of the price paid in Banda" (Keay 2006, p. 245)
"Throughout the seventeenth century the markup on cloves and nutmeg between purchase and final sale was on the order of 2000%" (Turner 2004, p. 291)
"American pepper traders from Salem, Massachusetts [in the early 1800s] ... made a net profit of 700 percent" (Shaffer 2013, p. 28).
To keep prices high no effort was too great, or too horrible. The Dutch, the English, as well as the French, Spanish, Portuguese and the Americans (who came quite late to the table), engaged in war, piracy, slaughter and slavery:
"By the 1620s the [Dutch East Indian Company] had worked to death or expelled practically the entire population of the Bandas. The company imported slaves to work the plantations..." (Turner 2004, p. 290)3Of course, as with any commodity, prices are going to be determined at least partly by what the market will bear. Too high, and you limit the number of people who can buy your product. Also, "prices had to be held below the levels at which sensational profits might be realised [sic] in order to discourage other importers" (Keay 2006, p. 250).
"Atrocities would be freely committed, wars fitfully fought, states toppled, peoples uprooted, hundreds of ships lost, thousands of lives squandered -- and all for limited quantities of various desiccated barks, shriveled berries, knobbly roots, dead buds, crumpled membranes, sticky gums and old fruit stones, none of them exactly indispensable and most of them quite irrelevant to the generality of mankind" (Keay 2006, pp. 5-6)
So how much did spices cost?
The late Dr. John Munro (1938-2013) of the University of Toronto had an interest in understanding the economics of the Middle Ages. In 1983 Professor John Munro of the University of Toronto gave a lecture, "The Luxury Trades of the Silk Road: How Much Did Silks and Spices Really Cost?" which was delivered to the Royal Ontario Museum Continuing Education Symposium "Silk Roads, China Ships." In 1988 Dr. Munro revised his lecture and titled it "Oriental Spices and Their Costs in Medieval Cuisine: Luxuries or Necessities?" This lecture was delivered to the Canadian Perspectives Committee, Senior Alumni Association, University of Toronto, at University College. The lecture was further revised in 2001. An online version is available at https://www.economics.utoronto.ca/wwwfiles/archives/munro5/SPICES1.htm, and the data I'm presenting here is taken from that source.4
Dr. Munro was interested in comparing the price of spices in the past and present. In a sense that's fairly simple -- find the documents and see what people paid. Unfortunately that doesn't usually work very well:
"Relative values are very hard to express: relative to what? We rejected the idea of expressing these prices in terms of grams of gold, because the purchasing power of gold has so radically changed over time, as indeed has its value in terms of just silver (9:1 in 1350; 16:1 in 1750; 65:1 today). Expressing values in terms of wheat equally ludicrous; but the labour [sic] of a skilled building craftsmen offers a measure of value with greater historical consistency and continuity -- has meaning." (Munro 2001: https://www.economics.utoronto.ca/wwwfiles/archives/munro5/SPICES1.htm)
So -- how much do spices cost? How have prices changed over the last six or seven centuries? Dr. Munro did several very detailed analyses, but this is a representative sample:
| Spices | London, 1348 (workdays/lb) | Toronto 2001 (workdays/lb) |
|---|---|---|
| Data from Munro 2001 (https://www.economics.utoronto.ca/wwwfiles/archives/munro5/SPICES1.htm) | ||
| Cloves | 4.44 | .017 (25.48 min) |
| Cinnamon | 3.02 | .014 (19.94 min) |
| Ginger | 1.50 | .012 (16.95 min) |
| Black Pepper | 2.25 | .017 (25.28 min) |
| Saffron | 22.86 | 2.6 (3,759.05 min) |
Table 1: Days of labor needed to buy spices, 1348 vs. 2001.
Dr. Munro took the average wage of a skilled worker in 1348 and determined how many days it would take to earn enough money to buy various spices. He then took the average wage in 2001 in Toronto, Canada and determined how many minutes work it would take to buy various spices (to make comparison simpler I converted the minutes to days).
I'm not even going to try to graph this. To put it simply -- spices were really expensive in the 14th century. Demand was high, supply was largely controlled by monopolies and restricted. Transportation was slow and dangerous. So it makes sense that spices centuries ago were a lot higher.
But is that always true?
I recently came across an online copy of the Sears, Roebuck and Company grocery catalog, "Your Grocery Store," for 1915 (Online: http://www.authentichistory.com/1898-1913/3-consume-leisure/6-Consumerism/1915_Sears_Grocery/index.html ; see the illustration at the beginning of this post). I wondered how the price for spices then compared with today's prices.
Below is a table showing the prices for spices (both ground and whole spices) listed in the 1915 Sears grocery catalog:
| Spices | $ (ground) Sears 1915 (all 1/2 lb) | $ (whole) Sears 1915 (all 1/2 lb) |
|---|---|---|
| Black pepper | 0.14 | 0.10 |
| Cayenne | 0.17 | -- |
| White pepper | 0.18 | 0.15 |
| Cinnamon "Extra" | 0.24 | 0.16 |
| Cinnamon "Select" | 0.21 | 0.09 |
| Ginger | 0.21 | 0.13 |
| Allspice | 0.10 | 0.06 |
| Cloves | 0.23 | 0.22 |
| Mustard | 0.16 | 0.14 |
| Nutmeg | 0.18 | 0.17 |
| Mace | 0.42 | 0.29 |
Table 2: Prices, Sears 1915 (ground and whole spices).
The next question: What can I use for a comparison?
Sears was the largest mail-order retailer in the world a century ago. Today the largest online retailer in the world is Amazon.5 And Amazon sells spices. Below is a table for the same spices listed above:
| Spices | $ (ground) Amazon 2016 | $ (whole) Amazon 2016 |
|---|---|---|
| Black pepper | 19.95 (16 oz) | 14.49 (13 oz) |
| Cayenne | 8.18 (14 oz) | -- |
| White pepper | 20.90 (18 oz) | 18.95 (16 oz) |
| Cinnamon "Extra" | 9.82 (18 oz) | 10.31 (8 oz) |
| Cinnamon "Select" | 11.20 (18 oz) | 19.00 (8 oz) |
| Ginger | 16.69 (16 oz) | 7.99 (16 oz) |
| Allspice | 23.40 (16 oz) | 10.91 (16 oz) |
| Cloves | 28.31 (16 oz) | 14.74 (16 oz) |
| Mustard | 26.99 (16 oz) | 27.99 (22 oz) |
| Nutmeg | 17.41 (16 oz) | 32.95 (16 oz) |
| Mace | 59.99 (15 oz) | 38.99 (4 oz) |
Table 3: Prices, Amazon 2016 (ground and whole spices).
Making a comparison between the two is a little complicated:
- All of the spices sold by Sears in 1915 were in 1/2 pound (0.227 kilogram) quantities. The Amazon spices were sometimes sold in one pound (0.45 kilogram) quantities, sometimes in other quantities (as indicated).
- All of the spices sold by Sears in 1915 were their own store brand, "Montclair." For current spices I tried, whenever possible, to use McCormick spices. McCormick and Company is the largest seller of spices in the world today. Unfortunately, it was not always possible to use McCormick spices; frequently Amazon only sold small containers of spices (so that the per-pound cost was inflated), or larger quantities were out of stock. When this happened I chose a different spice producer that sold the spice in a reasonably sized quantity. A list of the non-McCormick spices can be found in the Notes below.6
- The value of a dollar in 2016 is considerably less than it was in 1915.
Let's begin with the problem of price per pound. The simplest solution: convert all values to price per kilogram. Here is a combined table including all of the Sears 1915 and Amazon 2016 spices:
| Spices | $/kg (ground) Sears 1915 | $/kg (whole) Sears 1915 | $/kg (ground) Amazon 2016 | $/kg (whole) Amazon 2016 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Black pepper | 0.62 | 0.44 | 43.98 | 39.29 |
| Cayenne | 0.75 | -- | 20.56 | -- |
| White pepper | 0.79 | 0.66 | 41.01 | 41.78 |
| Cinnamon "Extra" | 1.06 | 0.71 | 19.27 | 45.46 |
| Cinnamon "Select" | 0.93 | 0.40 | 8.87 | 83.77 |
| Ginger | 0.93 | 0.57 | 36.79 | 17.61 |
| Allspice | 0.44 | 0.26 | 51.59 | 24.05 |
| Cloves | 1.01 | 0.97 | 62.41 | 32.50 |
| Mustard | 0.71 | 0.62 | 59.50 | 45.05 |
| Nutmeg | 0.79 | 0.75 | 38.38 | 72.64 |
| Mace | 1.85 | 2.56 | 141.51 | 343.83 |
Table 4: Prices, Sears 1915 and Amazon 2016.
The next issue: The value of a dollar. The Bureau of Labor Statistics has an online "Inflation Calculator" that gives an estimate of the value of the dollar over time, from 1913 to the present (http://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm ). According to the Calculator, $1.00 in 1913 is equivalent to $24.35 in 2016.7 Converting the 1915 prices to 2016 values gives us Table 5:
| Spices | $/kg (ground) Sears $ Converted 2016 | $/kg (whole) Sears $ Converted 2016 | $/kg (ground) Amazon 2016 | $/kg (whole) Amazon 2016 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Black pepper | 15.03 | 10.74 | 43.98 | 39.29 |
| Cayenne | 18.25 | -- | 20.56 | -- |
| White pepper | 19.33 | 16.11 | 41.01 | 41.78 |
| Cinnamon "Extra" | 25.77 | 17.18 | 19.27 | 45.46 |
| Cinnamon "Select" | 22.55 | 9.66 | 8.87 | 83.77 |
| Ginger | 22.55 | 13.96 | 36.79 | 17.61 |
| Allspice | 10.74 | 6.44 | 51.59 | 24.05 |
| Cloves | 24.69 | 23.62 | 62.41 | 32.50 |
| Mustard | 17.18 | 15.03 | 59.50 | 45.05 |
| Nutmeg | 19.33 | 18.25 | 38.38 | 72.64 |
| Mace | 45.09 | 62.27 | 141.51 | 343.83 |
Table 5: Prices per kilogram, in 2016 dollars, Sears 1915 and Amazon 2016.
It's obvious that there are major differences between 1915 and 2016. Let's visualize them:
Figure 2: Comparison -- 1915 vs. 2016 prices
(ground spices in 2016 dollars)
With the exception of cinnamon (both "Extra," which was more expensive and presumably a higher grade, and "Select"), every spice is more expensive today.
Perhaps that's to be expected. Global population in 1915 was less than 2 billion people; today it's about 7.4 billion. It's possible that this explains at least some of the difference -- increased population should increase demand (and prices). On the other hand, our technology today is vastly superior. Transportation, productivity, communications -- we have capabilities that would make our ancestors weep. We should be able to produce more and transport commodities more easily -- and that ought to reduce prices.
I haven't investigated this in any detail yet, but I can think of several possible reasons for the price increase:
- Increased population = increased demand. Population in 1915 was approximately 1.75 billion people. Population today is approximately 7.4 billion -- or, to put it another way, there are about four times as many possible consumers today.
- The end of colonialism = increased costs. Cheap and exploited labor is certainly still with us, but it has become much harder to simply demand products without payment, to literally enslave people, and to "drain" the resources and labor of a country.8
- Minimal changes in technology = stagnant productivity. Many spices are produced and harvested essentially as they have been for centuries (if not millennia).9 This means that, at least for some spices, productivity is essentially unchanged, and there simply isn't enough being produced to meet demand.
- Reduced acreage = insufficient production. It is possible that land that was once used to produce spices may have been shifted to new more profitable uses (housing, manufacturing, or to other crops), further reducing production.10
- Increased competition. Although you would expect that new producers and synthetic flavorings (e.g. cinnamaldehyde [cinnamon], eugenol [clove], etc.) would increase supply (and thus reduce prices) it's possible that cheap synthetic flavors may have increased demand for the real thing. Does anyone actually like artificial banana flavor (isoamyl acetate)?11
- Changes in people's tastes. Tastes change, and we are currently going through a period when there is a global increase in demand for highly spiced foods, which should result in increased prices. On the other hand, paradoxically, there may have been a decline in demand for certain flavors, which has made some products rare. Perhaps the reason that mace, for example, is so expensive today is that the flavor is so subtle and similar to nutmeg that there's a limited market -- but a limited market which is willing to pay a premium price.12
As I said, I haven't actually researched this. But the pattern is intriguing, and I'm sure I'll come back to this in the future.
Notes
1 In addition, The Council for Economic Education of New York prepared an exercise, "What's the Big Deal About Spices?" for middle schools partly based on the late Dr. Munro's work. See: http://msh.councilforeconed.org/documents/978-1-56183-758-8-activity-lesson-19.pdf.2 Exactly how much of a "drain" this actually constituted on the Empire is a bit hard to determine. Bostock and Riley in the early 19th century estimated it at "£1,400,000"; in my book, BONELESS, LEAN AND NOT FRIED: SIXTY RECIPES FOR THE FRIED FISH PHOBIC (which, remarkably enough, can actually be purchased here: https://www.amazon.com/Boneless-Lean-NOT-FRIED-Recipes-ebook/dp/B01DPJU5VG/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1468793167&sr=1-1&keywords=boneless%2C+lean#navbar ) I assumed each sesterce was valued at 0.073 grams of gold, so that 550 million sesterces would be worth 40,150,000 grams of gold or, at current value ($42.83/gram, according to http://www.goldgrambars.com/), about $1,719,624,500. Which is close to two billion dollars. Which is a lot.
I should also note that Pliny backtracks on that figure of 550 million sesterces a bit later: "At the very lowest computation, India, the Seres, and the Arabian Peninsula, withdraw from our empire one hundred millions of sesterces every year—so dearly do we pay for our luxury" (The Natural History 12:41).
And there's yet another problem. Bostock and Riley clearly say "five hundred and fifty millions," but Turner cites a figure of fifty million sesterces (2004, p. 81). For the time being I'm going to stick with the figure of 550 million. I get the feeling somebody has made an error somewhere. I hope it's not me.
3 See also Keay 2006, p. 242.
4 To express this a bit more comprehensibly -- from 1066 to 1971 the British pound (£) was divided into 20 shillings, each of which were in turn divided into 12 pennies (or pence). In other words, a dozen pennies made a shilling, and a score of shillings made a pound, and since 12 x 20 = 240, there would thus be 240 pennies to the pound. Taking the example, one penny in the Banda Islands would thus become £2.10s -- or ((2 x 240) + (10 x 12)) pennies, or 480 + 120 = 600 pennies.
5 Technically Alibaba (https://www.alibaba.com/) may be larger, but it's difficult to say for certain (and it depends a lot on which criteria you use to define "largest"). See: https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/248345 ; http://www.cnbc.com/2016/05/05/a-tale-of-two-companies-matching-up-alibaba-vs-amazon.html ; http://www.ecommercefuel.com/alibaba-vs-amazon/.
6 Non-McCormick spices from Amazon:
- Whole white pepper: The Spice Lab
- Whole ginger: Om India Plaza
- Whole allspice: Spicy World
- Whole nutmeg: Freckles International
- Whole mace: Penzeys
8 See: http://www.ivarta.com/columns/OL_060206.htm#_edn5
https://www.academia.edu/18804851/critical_assessment_of_Dadabhai_Naorojis_poverty_and_un-British_rule_in_india_
https://books.google.com/books?id=6Vm0CAAAQBAJ&pg=PA170&lpg=PA170&dq=empire+built+on+colonial+exploitation+india&source=bl&ots=Gmy7mhrHL4&sig=ZRx95WUzq8Q7HJ6Iqfqk325stcM&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi4iOmksv7NAhVTzGMKHaMrCq8Q6AEIiwEwDw#v=onepage&q=empire%20built%20on%20colonial%20exploitation%20india&f=false
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2005/aug/20/past.hearafrica05
https://books.google.com/books?id=xVFNAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA437&lpg=PA437&dq=empires+built+on+colonial+exploitation&source=bl&ots=uTolvhLoRw&sig=aUzirhrs4IdnDFsYveitSu2cWBE&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwin_JPMsP7NAhULymMKHXc0DscQ6AEIZzAL#v=onepage&q=empires%20built%20on%20colonial%20exploitation&f=false
9 See Keay 2006, pp. 1-2; Turner 2004, pp. xxi-xxii; see also http://www.fao.org/docrep/x5047e/x5047e06.htm
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/heres-how-cinnamon-harvested-valley-indonesia-180955063/?no-ist
http://science.howstuffworks.com/life/botany/cinnamon.htm ; however, note the modern production techniques that have been developed for black pepper production: http://www.ipcnet.org/pg/content/7/index.html
10See http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/1747423X.2011.620993 ; Abdul Rahman, Abdul Aziz and Mohd Ariff Hussein. 1992. Agricultural Taxation in Malaysia, FAO agricultural taxation studies. Food & Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Online: https://books.google.com/books?id=ml976tNa3wAC&pg=PA10&lpg=PA10&dq=stagnating+pepper+production&source=bl&ots=3hjnTUUZFH&sig=Df_RkLIvFxfjnO5ZtfmpSX3M2GQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiz8LjC84DOAhVM5GMKHfEMBKcQ6AEIMDAE#v=onepage&q=stagnating%20pepper%20production&f=false
11See Turner 2004, p. 300; see also http://www.popsci.com/history-flavors-us-pictorial ; http://www.businessinsider.com/facts-about-natural-and-artificial-flavors-2014-1 ;http://www.ediblegeography.com/fake-cinnamon-joins-artificial-vanilla-and-wins/
12See Turner 2004, p. 303; see also Pullar, Phillipa. 1971. Consuming Passions. London: Hamish Hamilton.
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