tore at the once-shared fabric of their lives. Not only in Andalusia but also in historic Fez, Alexandria, Cairo, Jerusalem, Beirut, Damascus, Baghdad, Aleppo, Smyrna, Constantinople, Thessaloniki, Bukhara, Turpan, Chang’an (Xi’an), and Zayton (Quanzhou), such convivencia was for centuries the custom rather than the exception. Was cooperation among most spice traders along a five-thousand-mile caravan route once the norm, or was subtle or not-so-subtle coercion and domination always there? Why do the descendants of those same traders today live in a world where hatred and violence keep the holiest of cities, Jerusalem, a divided, desperate shadow of what it once was?
Although I will not give you direct answers to those questions at the moment, I will give you a hint: if you come far enough with me along the spice trail that opens up in the next few pages, the answer will come wafting toward you like the purifying aroma of burning frankincense.
But where will I be going? I will be traveling sections of the spice roads that played pivotal historical roles in shaping the processes of globalization that now affect each one of us every day of our lives. In particular, I will be visiting the historically significant souks, mercados, bazaars, and harbors where these processes were first field-tested before being applied and extended to countless other landscapes. I will stay in caravansaries, pensiones, hostels, hotels, and haciendas where landmark negotiations have been made and debts have been paid, so that I might listen to the ways in which “spicers” trade across currencies and cultures, with or without a shared language. I will relate the essence of these conversations back to you, as I have captured them in field journals or on the edges of paper napkins. Over the course of twelve years, these inquiries have taken me to markets in Afghanistan, Bali, China, Egypt, Ethiopia, Israel, Lebanon, Mexico, Morocco, Oman, Palestine, Portugal, Spain, Syria, Tajikistan, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates.
To be sure, many of the modes of spice commerce have changed over the centuries. Recently, much of the great market of Aleppo, Syria, has been destroyed by civil war, while others, such as the Souk al-Attarin in the Old City of Jerusalem, have been made into touristic facades of their former selves. To understand what once went on in these places, it has been necessary to dip into private archives, public libraries, and nearby museums. In some cases, traces of the former activities of these historic markets still linger around the corner, and there ancient fragrances and flavors, the modes of cooperation and elements of conflict or colonization, may still prevail.
And so, this narrative will weave at least two strands together again and again: the ancient practices that can be discerned from history, archaeology, ethnobotany, and linguistics of how spices were gathered, traded, and diffused into various cuisines and my own descriptions that bear witness to the remnants of those practices that remain in place. In fact, many of those customs retrace my own Arab ancestors’ participation in the spice trade or in cross-cultural cooperation and conflict. Yes, both personal and scholarly motives have driven me to undertake these journeys; I have wanted to decipher my own family’s historical role in developing the processes of globalization that inevitably affect my own behaviors, values, and consumption patterns. I have questions to ask of my ancestors and perhaps of yours as well. As an itinerant British geographer suggested in 1625, “Let our Merchants answer, [for they] owe their spices to Arabia.”
• • •
• MASTIC •
Mastic is one of the names given to the sun-dried resinous droplets of a gum that flows from the wounds of the cultivated Pistacia lentiscus var. chia tree, a close relative of the tree that yields pistachio nuts. Although the tree can be found throughout the Mediterranean basin and its many islands, the resinous gum with the sweetest fragrance and most distinctive terroir comes from only one area on the Greek island of Chios, in the Aegean Sea. There, the clear nectarlike resin that weeps from the wounds inflicted on the leafy shrublike tree is called the Tears of Chios and is carefully harvested and dried into a hard, translucent mass that looks like peanut brittle. When chewed or dissolved over heat in a saucepan, the resin softens and becomes pliant once more, turning a pearly white and taking on an opaque luster.
All of the production of high-quality mastic occurs on limestone ridges around the medieval villages in the Mastichochoria region of Chios, where the resin has been granted denomination of origin status and a local cooperative oversees the harvest and its sale. Although the Lebanese cultivate this same species for its nutlike fruits to flavor sausages and for its mastic, they cannot legally sell the latter as true mastic in food and beverage markets. There is also a Bombay mastic harvested from Pistacia atlantica ssp. cabulica.
The English term mastic is borrowed from the Greek mastiha, which is etymologically related to the ancient Greek and Phoenician word mastichan, “to chew.” Mastic has been casually used as a chewing gum, a breath freshener, a perfume, a varnish, a medicine, and a digestive for at least twenty-four hundred years. Over time, Mediterranean cultures identified additional culinary and enological uses for the versatile gum, so that today most of the Chios production is used in liqueurs, pastries, and candies.
Mastic is an essential ingredient in many anise-flavored distilled beverages, including Greek ouzo and Turkish and Cretan raki. In addition to using mastiha in their own ouzo, the residents of Chios also make a sweet-smelling liqueur called mastichato. Growing up in a Lebanese American family in a Greek American neighborhood where ice-cold water was always added to fine arak and ouzo to make them milky and sweet, I had wondered whether mastic was the magical ingredient that caused white crystals to condense and color the drink. The true cause, however, is simpler than that: anethole, the essential oil in aniseeds, is soluble in alcohol but not in water. The Greeks also use mastiha in two refreshing summertime drinks: soumada, a mix of mastic, cane sugar, almond milk, and the potent liquor tsipouro; and hypovrihio (submarine), which consists of mastic, honey, and cold water.
Some teetotalers may have ingested mastic and savored its flavors when sampling the famous confection called loukoumia, or Turkish delight, found throughout the Middle East. Mastic is also used to flavor and thicken puddings, candies, sweet pastries, ice creams, jams, and cheeses, and it can be added to rubs for baked or fried poultry and seafood to give them a distinctive crust. If these uses sound exclusively secular compared with those of gums such as frankincense and myrrh, remember that followers of the Greek Orthodox faith celebrate scores of sacred feasting and fasting days each year. It is therefore not surprising that mastiha is ritually used in Greek festival breads such as vasilopita (St. Basil’s bread). Mastic was also a key ingredient in the lamb and garbanzo bean stew that Hu Szu-hui recommended to his Mongolian emperor, as recorded in A Soup for the Qan, the classic food history of the Silk Roads. I have been known to keep a few lumps of mastic on the top of my desk, to chew on whenever I need to project my imagination into the eastern Mediterranean.
Davidson, Alan, ed. The Oxford Companion to Food. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999.
Green, Aliza. Field Guide to Herbs and Spices. Philadelphia: Quirk Books, 2006.
Katzer, Gernot. “Gernot Katzer’s Spice Pages.” http://gernot-katzers-spice-pages.com/engl/index.html. Accessed May 8, 2013.
Sherman, Deborah Rothman. “The Magic Tree.” Epikouria Magazine of Fine Food and Drink from Greece 1 (2005). www.epikkouria.com.
Sortun, Ana, with Nicole Chaison. Spice: Flavors of the Eastern Mediterranean. New York: Regan Books, 2006.
• HARIRA • CARNE DE CORDERO EN LA OLLA
Lamb and Garbanzo Bean Stew
This ancient dish may have emerged at different times in multiple places, but it clearly spread with Arab and Persian influence as far east as Mongolia, and with Jewish and Arab-Berber influence as far west as the Hispanic communities of northern Mexico. Currently,
