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June 30

European obsession with exotic spices

Salt from Africa, Tea from China, Spices from India. Why were Europeans obsessed with spices? Were indigenous European dishes extremely bland and boring? 50.4.236.254 (talk) 04:23, 30 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I think you've mixed several things together; there was salt in Europe, and the habit of tea-drinking didn't become significant until the 18th century. The spices that Europeans famously wanted during the period of voyages of exploration (16th century and end of the 15th century) came as much from Indonesia as India. Some were considered to have medicinal value, and some made meat preserved according to the techniques of the time more edible, etc. If you couldn't even get what we now consider ordinary pepper except through long and sometimes-unreliable trade routes where every middleman took a generous profit, you might develop an interest in spices too... AnonMoos (talk) 08:30, 30 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The use of exotic spices is by no means unique to Europe. For example, spices were a huge part of the import trade into China along the Silk Road. It might be difficult to imagine Chinese cuisine without chili peppers or pepper, but both were introduced to China relatively recently (at least measured relative to the length of Chinese dynastic history). --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 09:29, 30 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

There were plenty of native plants in Europe which could be used to improve flavour, and aid preservation of food - though there does seem to be a correlation between the strength of spices and the local climate, so that those which grow in the tropics tend to be hotter and stronger. Salt is a different matter - it is essential to life, and was widely available (as sea salt or rock salt). However, the main impetus for the import of exotic items of any kind (not just spices) was wealth and the desire to show it. The wealthy have always been in a sort of competition to show just how well off they are, and how much better off they are than their neighbours. Exotic spices, Chinese porcelain, silk, Italian marble, wine, olive oil - all helped show just how wealthy you were. Wymspen (talk) 09:32, 30 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

See History of Spices which shows that there had been a spice trade since ancient times. See also Spice and Status which says: "Spices were both the status symbols and high-yield investments of their day. Expensive and coveted, they were the mark of a wealthy household". Alansplodge (talk) 09:57, 30 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

We have an article on the spice trade. --Viennese Waltz 14:45, 30 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The fallacies in the question include the idea that there are "European dishes." The cuisines of Europe are numerous and vary widely - and wildly for that matter. While some might be considered bland others are not. It should also be noted that the use of spices - exotic or otherwise - is not restricted to Europe. MarnetteD|Talk 16:54, 30 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The eurocentricity and recentism of the premise is absurd and exhibits such lack of thought and knowledge that the OP need not have signed it. The Arabs, for example, set up trading posts from Zanzibar to the Spice Islands of the East Indies. Look at the history of coffee and ginger. Roman soldiers were actually paid a salary in salt. Chili peppers are used throughout south and east Asia, although they originated in the Americas. The recent book 1493 addresses this at some length, but TRIGGER WARNING!!!: it would require work to acquire and read. μηδείς (talk) 18:00, 30 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

How about a link ( 1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created ) instead of needless aspersions? It is eminently practical for people with idle curiosity to avoid spending money to be allowed to read one particular reference when others are available. We have an article on spice trade. I would think many of the factors going into spice consumption are the same as today -- I mean, just to spout off a guess, it makes sense for us today occasionally to pay roughly 50% of an item's value in shipping, if it is unusual, interesting, and worth the 50% base price even at its home port. I would speculate it is more useful to think about history under the assumption that people were the same as we are rather than different. Even so ... this leaves room for some remarkable high-end items: according to [1] "a pound of cinnamon could be used to purchase three sheep" at one time. But then again, the cinnamon you buy at the store today, which is still somewhat pricey at the retail level though you can find Google hits for $2 a pound in bulk, is not actually cinnamon; it's cassia. I have no idea how much it costs for bona fide cinnamon or where to find it. I'm also not entirely sure about the value of a sheep or what kind of sheep that site is talking about. But I could believe hard-core foodies would spend like that to get some elite item to impress the right person at the right time, then or now. What I don't believe necessarily is the "food preservation" explanation, where it comes to the high-priced items in foreign ports. I mean yes, it's been shown that several spices have bacteriostatic effects, but nobody is going to pay the price of three sheep for something that can't preserve even a single sheep. Does that make any sense? That said, looking again I find [2] which says that a pound of cinnamon in London in the 15th century was about 3 days' wages - which is of course still extraordinarily pricey, but I doubt Londoners made a sheep a day. That source casts doubt on the preservation idea, and points out that around 1650 the demand for spices dropped substantially, but there were no refrigerators in evidence. You might as well ask why Americans are willing to spend so much on cocaine... Wnt (talk) 19:11, 30 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Do we have an article on the use of spices to preserve food? I found Food preservation and Curing (food preservation), but nothing specifically about using, say, pepper to preserve food. --Guy Macon (talk) 21:32, 30 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

here are several articles on the topic.--Jayron 32 22:00, 30 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Note that spices could also be used to mask "off" flavors in foods that had started to spoil. Of course, it's not a good idea to eat such foods in our time, but back then, if you were facing starvation, it might well be better to risk eating slightly spoiled food, provided you could choke it down with the help of spices. Also, many of the foods we eat now have been heavily bred to appeal to our tastes, while back then many were not nearly as tasty, and spices could help there, too. And note that the sugar we add to just about everything these days to make it tasty was not as available then. Spices would have been an alternative then, and remain a healthy alternative now. For example, cinnamon can give foods a slightly sweet flavor without adding any sugar.StuRat (talk) 00:28, 2 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@StuRat: That's an ingenious idea ..... take some rotten meat from the local market and make it semi palatable with some spice imported from the Far East that costs more than gold. I think I'll award that a ^{[citation needed]}, sorry. Wnt (talk) 20:48, 5 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The poor would use cheap native spices, of course (or free, if they gathered them directly). StuRat (talk) 01:47, 6 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

And one of the main reasons why the Portuguese went around the south of Africa was to cut out as many middlemen as possible in the spice trade to Europe (especially Muslim middlemen, but also merchants of some of the Italian cities). I'm not sure if there was an explicit goal of lowering the prices of spices in Europe, but it ended up having that effect... AnonMoos (talk) 01:55, 6 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Humpty Dumpty

When did Humpty Dumpty become an egg? Hack (talk) 04:58, 30 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Not entirely sure what you mean. The nursery rhyme is generally considered to be a riddle about an egg, in somewhat the same tradition as the Anglo-Saxon riddles etc. AnonMoos (talk) 08:18, 30 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

It's a good question, and I've often wondered the same. The verse makes no reference to eggs, shells, yolk, albumen, cracking or any other words you'd expect for an egg-related rhyme. The 1842 text in our article implies that Humpty Dumpty isn't an egg ("sinews") unless, rather revoltingly, it's an egg close to hatching. Certainly, by the 1870s, we have depictions of him as an egg in the Alice books. --Dweller (talk) Become old fashioned! 09:58, 30 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

It seems to have been Lewis Carroll who first made the egg connection in Through the looking-glass and what Alice found there (1872) according to this (which may not be the most reliable source in the world). Alansplodge (talk) 10:09, 30 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I think your research is sound A. I think it fair to mention that, while Carroll started the connection in his writing, John Tenniel gave us the visualization in his illustrations for the book. MarnetteD|Talk 17:02, 30 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I did find Mother Goose's nursery rhymes and nursery songs (p. 30) which very graphically illustrates Humpty Dumpty's smashed egg-head with the contents flowing out onto the ground, but it is annoyingly undated, although the New York Public Library has catalogued it as the 1870s, so may well have been influenced by Carroll. The Nursery Rhyme Book (p. 129), dated 1898, has a version of the rhyme in a chapter called "Riddles & Paradoxes" and gives the answer as "an egg". Alansplodge (talk) 18:13, 30 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I thought I had it, but The book of nursery rhymes, tales, and fables. A gift for all seasons (p. 96) (1846 or 1847) infuriatingly has no illustration. Alansplodge (talk) 18:20, 30 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Keystone Folklore Quarterly, Volume 11 (Fall 1966, p. 169) quotes Archer Taylor from English Riddles from Oral Tradition 1977 (p. 1) that the rhyme was originally a riddle to which the answer was an egg.

How Literary Worlds Are Shaped: A Comparative Poetics of Literary Imagination by Bo Pettersson (p. 128) says: '“Humpty Dumpty” was originally a riddle about what cannot be fixed, but owing to illustrations, especially Sir John Tenniel's drawings to Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass, most adults familiar with it since the late nineteenth century know the answer: Humpty Dumpty is an egg (see Opie and Opie 1997: 252-257)". Alansplodge (talk) 19:01, 30 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The riddle hypothesis is confirmed by The St. James's Magazine and United Empire Review, Volume 2 (p. 493) published in 1861 says: "Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall, Humpty Dumpty had a great fall ; Not all the king's horses, nor all the king's men, Could set... VERY true, very true indeed; for, if I mistake not, this is a riddle about an egg". Alansplodge (talk) 19:14, 30 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The Beastie Boys already said "Humpty Dumpty was a big fat egg", so that should be authority enough for his status. Drmies (talk) 22:03, 30 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Beastie Boys? Some sort of popular beat combo perhaps? Alansplodge (talk) 22:53, 30 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Formerly, yes. RIP MCA. Drmies (talk) 00:58, 1 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Taryn Brumfitt

To equate Taryn Brumfitt with the film Embrace (film) is not correct and not serious. Thats reducing to not even 1% in this case! To reduce somebody just about one work of this person, is that serious?--2A02:1205:34E4:4200:E9C4:C75E:740F:A8D0 (talk) 12:23, 30 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Nobody has written an article about that person. They have only written an article about a film. If you feel the topic of Taryn Brumfitt satisfies WP:NOTABILITY then please go ahead and set up such an article. Relevant principles for new editors contributing to Wikipedia are summarized at WP:5P, and WP:Tutorial is a general introduction to editing. Good luck. Dmcq (talk) 12:45, 30 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Or you can add it to the list at Wikipedia:Requested articles/Biography/By profession but you may have to wait some time for a volunteer to get around to it. Alansplodge (talk) 13:33, 30 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The original poster is apparently complaining about the redirect. I think it is common in Wikipedia that if a person is only mentioned in one article then their name is made to redirect to that article. If it later happens that an article about that person is created, there is no problem with changing the redirect. --76.71.5.114 (talk) 20:57, 1 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Done. Is the ref desk a place for improving Wikipedia articles? Shome mishtake, shurely?--Shirt58 (talk) 11:32, 4 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

music and alignment of the planets (well sort of)

I read a long while back, Nick Cave said in an interview that he played Papa won't leave you Henry for his band with just him and his piano, and they went, "Hmm, maybe we could use that." The recorded version quickly became famous. Does this happen often, with popular music or any other style? I'm referring to the way the finished product seems to be rather sensitive to the way it just happens to come out, whether through features of the arrangement, the production, or the sound of the singer's voice (I'm calling it all, alignment of the planets, for want of something better). Note that any styles, and any related commentary on the alignment of the planets aspect of music, is most welcome. IBE (talk) 18:00, 30 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Can you define what you mean by "the way it just happens to come out"? Every song has to come out at some point. Do you mean songs that were written from start to end in just one sitting? 209.149.113.5 (talk) 18:38, 30 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

It's hard to define, which is why I gave an example. But the best definition would be a song that no one thought was anything special when it was demoed, before being put together. At the opposite end of the scale would be "We Are Young" by Fun. Read that article, and see Jeff Bhasker's reaction. IBE (talk) 22:24, 30 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

"Serendipity"? There are a number of songs which were hurriedly put together (more or less as filler material), but went on to become huge hits, such as Kung Fu Fighting and Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye. For literal alignments of the planets, see the "Music of the Spheres", unfortunately inadequately covered in Wikipedia's Musica universalis article (which doesn't discuss Kepler at all or mention the 1979 Ruff-Rodgers collaboration...) AnonMoos (talk) 00:53, 1 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

AnonMoos, the road is long, the road is hard, and many fall by the side. Drmies (talk) 01:32, 1 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Also see (or hear) Holst's The Planets. Shock Brigade Harvester Boris (talk) 01:02, 1 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

For a discussion of Said, the stars aligning, and the Beastie Boys, see this article. Drmies (talk) 01:31, 1 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Where's that pre-Montgolfier brothers image where

There's lots of stuff in the sky that shouldn't be there. It looks like an ergot hallucination. I saw it once and don't remember where. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 19:19, 30 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe Vädersolstavlan? Alansplodge (talk) 22:51, 30 June 2017 (UTC)[reply]

The Flammarion engraving is 19th-century, but often mistaken for medieval... AnonMoos (talk) 00:25, 1 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Those weren't it. I remember balls in rectangles or cylinders in the sky and no guy sticking his head through the edge of the world (though I've seen that one too and also thought it was Medieval) Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 21:07, 1 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@Sagittarian Milky Way: Late to the party, but maybe 1561 celestial phenomenon over Nuremberg? If not, try UFO paintings. Brandmeister^talk 11:15, 3 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

That was it, thanks. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 19:50, 3 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]