[TinyRedLeaf]

Originally Posted by LKK

What does spice signify within the context of the title? I can't figure out what it's referring to. Is it literally a spice? If so, how does a spice figure into the story?

"Pepper. Do you have pepper? It's light and it won't be unwieldy. It will be winter soon, and if there are more meat dishes, the price will rise."
— Spice and Wolf, Episode 6, "Wolf and Silent Farewell"

Spice up your life
A spice is a dried seed, fruit, root, bark or vegetative substance used in nutritionally insignificant quantities as a food additive for flavoring, and sometimes as a preservative by killing or preventing the growth of harmful bacteria.[3]

Spices were among the most luxurious products available in Europe in the Middle Ages, the most common being black pepper, cinnamon, cumin, nutmeg, ginger and cloves. They were all imported from plantations in Asia and Africa, which made them extremely expensive. From the 8th until the 15th century, Venice had the monopoly on spice trade with the Middle East. The trade made the region phenomenally rich.

It has been estimated that around 1,000 tons of pepper and 1,000 tons of the other common spices were imported into Western Europe each year during the Late Middle Ages. The value of these goods was the equivalent of a yearly supply of grain for 1.5 million people.

Black gold
Black pepper (piper nigrum) is a flowering vine in the family Piperaceae, cultivated for its fruit, which is usually dried and used as a spice and seasoning. The same fruit is also used to produce white pepper, red pepper and green pepper.[4]

A popular modern-day misconception is that medieval cooks used liberal amounts of spices, particularly black pepper, to disguise the taste of spoiled meat. However, a medieval feast was as much a culinary event as it was a display of the host's vast resources and generosity. As such, the use of ruinously expensive spices on cheap, rotting meat would have made little sense.

Historically, dried ground pepper is one of the most common spices in European cuisine and its descendants, having been known and prized since antiquity for both its flavour and its use as a medicine. Lawrence was most probably buying this type of pepper in Episode 6, but this is debatable, as Horo was referring to red pepper in Chapter 5 of the manga.

Pepper has been used as a spice in India since prehistoric times. Its most important source was India, particularly the Malabar Coast, in what is now the state of Kerala. Until well after the Middle Ages, virtually all of the black pepper found in Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa travelled there from India's Malabar region.

The preciousness of pepper and other spices encouraged European efforts to find a sea route to India and consequently to the European colonial occupation of that country, as well as the European discovery and colonisation of the East Indies and the Americas.

“We seek Christians and spices”
In 1498, Vasco da Gama of Portugal became the first European to reach India by sea. When the Arabs in Calicut (who spoke Spanish and Italian) asked why they had come, de Gama’s representative replied, "We seek Christians and spices." Though this first trip to India by way of the southern tip of Africa was only a modest success, the Portuguese quickly returned in greater numbers and used their superior naval firepower to gain complete control of trade on the Arabian sea.[4]

The Portuguese proved unable to maintain their stranglehold on the spice trade for long. The old Arab and Venetian trade networks successfully smuggled enormous quantities of spices through the patchy Portuguese blockade, and pepper once again flowed through Alexandria and Italy, as well as around Africa. By the 17th century, the Portuguese had lost almost all of their valuable Indian Ocean possessions to the Dutch and the English.

Going Dutch
By the end of the 16th century, the highly profitable sea trade routes between Europe and Asia had been established and dominated by the Portuguese. In 1596, a group of Dutch merchants from the Dutch East India Company (Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie or VOC in old Dutch spelling, literally "United East Indian Company") decided to circumvent the Portuguese monopoly.[5]

The Dutch East India Company was established in 1602. It was the first multinational corporation in the world and the first company to issue stock. In addition, the VOC possessed quasi-governmental powers, including the ability to wage war, negotiate treaties, coin money, and establish colonies.

In 1596, a four-ship VOC expedition established contact with Indonesia. The expedition reached Banten, the main pepper port of West Java, where they clashed with both the Portuguese and indigenous Indonesians. Half the crew were lost before the expedition made it back to the Netherlands the following year, but with enough spices to make a considerable profit.

By 1603, the first permanent Dutch trading post in Indonesia was established in Banten, West Java and in 1611, another was established at Jayakarta (present-day Jakarta).

But a new competitor soon entered the fray — the British East India Company.

The Company
Like the VOC, the British East India Company (“the Company”) was an early joint-stock company with similar powers to wage war and establish colonies.[6]

The Company was founded by a variety of enterprising and influential businessmen in 1600. They obtained the Crown's charter for exclusive permission to trade in the East Indies for a period of 15 years.

Initially, however, the Company made little impression on the Dutch control of the spice trade because it did not have a lasting outpost in the East Indies. Eventually, ships belonging to the Company arrived in India, and established a trade transit point at Surat in 1608. Within the next two years, it built its first factory (ie, a trading post) in the town.

From this foothold, the Company began spreading its activities throughout India and the East Indies. It eventually ruled India with a private army of 260,000 native troops (twice the size of the contemporary British Army).[2] It encountered severe VOC hostility that triggered the Anglo-Dutch Wars, fought over access to spices. The English eventually gained control of all Dutch colonies in the East Indies after Napoleon conquered the Netherlands in 1810.[7]

Competitive advantage
The company’s past is often more dramatic than its present. Early businessmen took risks with their lives as well as their fortunes. Send a fleet to the Spice Islands at the beginning of the 17th century, and you might be lucky if a third of the men came back alive. This was a time when competitive advantage meant supplying an English lady for the sultan’s harem and when your suppliers might put your head on a stick.

On hindsight, companies have become more ethical: more honest, more humane, more socially responsible. In contrast, the early history of companies was often one of imperialism and speculation, of appalling rip-offs and even massacres.

The company has been one of the West’s great competitive advantages. It has rendered human effort productive. Companies increase the pool of capital available for productive investment. They allow investors to spread their risk by purchasing small and easily marketable shares in several enterprises. And they provide a way of imposing effective management structures on large organisations.[2]


=============
References:
[1] Spice: The History of a Temptation, Jack Turner, Vintage (2005)

[2] The Company: A Short History of a Revolutionary Idea, Micklethwait & Wooldridge, Phoenix (2003)

[3] Spice

[4] Black pepper

[5] Dutch East India Company

[6] British East India Company

[7] The Anglo-Dutch Wars