Spice trade

The American Spice Trade Association (ASTA) (4) accepts spice as any dried plant product used primarily for seasoning purposes. This broad definition was designed so that items labeled only as spice could give adequate protection to proprietary formulas for spice mixtures. However, ASTA recommends that the dehydrated vegetables and the color spices be listed separately by name on all labels. ASTA also has recommended that the capsicums, no matter the species, be delisted as spices and labeled separately. 

By 1799, the British held northern Borneo, India, Ceylon, Siagapore, and the mainland of Malay to the borders of Siam, and allowed the Dutch to retain the islands of the Malay Archipelago. The center of the spice trade ia the West shifted to London. 

From about 1815, fast vessels gave Salem, Massachusetts a virtual monopoly of the pepper trade with Sumatra. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the spice trade began to play a secondary role ia economic and pohtical influence. The demand for spices ia the United States directed the shift of the occidental spice center to New York while the oriental center was at Siagapore. 

Economic Market. The spice trade is controlled by many direct elements and responds slowly to supply and demand fluctuations. Resupply depends on growth to plant maturity, which for certain items, such as black pepper or nutmeg, can be several years. The raw material is directly affected by climate, adverse weather conditions, and control of plant diseases and insect and animal pests. Limited agricultural scientific advances are appHed to the cultivation of the botanicals, and there are many grades of product and degrees of quahty caused by different growing or processing conditions, sometimes by unknown factors as well. 

The USDA considers most spices generaHy recognized as safe (GRAS). There are no standards of identity or legal definitions of spices. Spices used in dmgs must meet the official standards of the US. Pharmacoepla in force. Advisory specifications may also be appHed in commercial spice trading. 

The American Spice Trade Association (ASTA), estabUshed by the industry, works with U.S. government organizations to set up specifications (9) for spice products that conform specificaHy to the laws, however generalized they are. 

FTstory of Spices, American Spice Trade Association Inc., New York, 1960. 

U.S. Spice Trade, FTEA. 1-92, United States Department of Agdculture, Eoreign Agdcultural Service, Washington, D.C., Apr. 1992. 

Official Analytical Methods of The American Spice Trade Association, 3rd ed., American Spice Trade Association, Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1985. 

GewQrzessig, m. aromatic vinegar, gewurzhait, a. spicy, aromatic. Gewtirz haftigkeit, /. spiciness, aromatic quality, -handel, m. spice trade, grocers trade. 

Figure 2.3. The City of Venice, iike some other cities in Northern Italy, was greatly enriched by its participation in the spice trade with the resuiting biossoming of the arts, science and architecture.

The Crusaders, the spice trade and the rise of the Ottoman Empire In 1095, the first Christian crusade against Islam was larmched. There were many motives for participation in the crusades, not all religious. Although Pope Urban preached the radical doctrine of fighting a holy war, some were motivated more by mammon. As the first Crusaders gathered in Byzantium to larmch their assault south, some Venetian merchants were well aware of the fact that their traditional spice trade routes were already under threat from Islamic military and commercial competition, so aiding an army that... 

Figure 2.5. When the Dutch gained a near monopoly on the spice trade into northern Europe, the resulting wealth made Amsterdam one of the richest cities in the world, with a consequential blossoming of the arts, education, medicine and science.

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