![]() In half a millennium distance, the spice aroma means the aroma of the aristocracy. It started with a large amount of wine, confections, sugar, and fruits, and there came the spices as the sumptuous serving, the aroma and taste of paradise that the noblemen had been waiting for. Prince Henrique served a sumptuous banquet for the noblemen. It was seen in the Portuguese prince, Prince Henque's Banquet, on the 1414 Christmas Eve before attacking the Moors. In fact, it is clearly pictured how spices were served in a banquet and considered luxurious, not only for the taste but also the aroma. John from Hautevile in Archithrenius once wrote “ Kebangsawanaan dinilai dari kemewahan sebuah meja makan dan oleh cita rasa yang terpuaskan lewat pengeluaran yang besar”. A long journey that was taken by the owners of the scent of paradise. Despite the explorers' ambition to dominate the precious commodities, the scarcity factor, and the high difficulty level to obtain them, spices became the prima donna for centuries.įrom their native land in the small tropical and volcanic islands (Ternate, Tidore, Makian, Moti, Bacan, and Banda Neira), nutmeg, mace, and clove flowed to the Venessia, Belgium, and London markets, passing through the winding routes, circling half of the earth, brought by people from different tribes, nations, and languages. Aroma and taste, which became the source of heavenly pleasure for them, contrarily became the source of misery and suffering, which caused Nusantara to fall into the dark valley. However, their curious feature immediately changed into greed, depicted in the colonialism, imperialism, and capitalism expressions. In a book Suma Oriental, Tomé Pires stated, "The Malay merchants say that God made Timor for sandalwood and Banda for mace and Maluku for cloves, and that this merchandise is not known anywhere in the world except in these places and I asked and enquired very diligently whether they had this merchandise anywhere else and everyone said not ".² The nutmeg and clove only grew in those small volcanic islands, while there were no such plants in other places. The taste of paradise in various perspectives became the fundamental aspect for the explorers on taking the danger and risk of losing their lives to find the island in Nusantara. For thousands of years, the taste for spices spread all over the earth in the process of changing the world.¹Īs the only place where spices (nutmeg and clove) grew, Maluku once was a paradise and destination for people from different parts of the world. In the name of spices, richness came and went, power was established to be later destroyed, and even a new world–from the orientalists' perspective–was discovered, like the land of America and Australia. In this sense, Jack Turner remarked that the lust for spices unexpectedly led the westerners to move in such a way. Even Jack Turner in Sejarah Rempah (2011) wrote that Christopher Colombus wouldn't have discovered the American continent if it hadn't been for the strong desire and lust to find the location of clove and nutmeg producer. Of course, we've understood that the establishment of the imperial kingdoms of Portuguese, Spanish, British, and Dutch in Asia rooted in the search for Maluku spices. Even the sailors in the Spice Routes era excessively expressed that the scent of Maluku spices had reached them tens of miles before the sailors berthed in the spice islands. Nusantara Spices, especially Maluku's (nutmeg and clove), are a long and fantastic history about an aroma for human life. When today you can't differentiate nutmeg's aroma from clove, people will think you are infected with the Covid-19 virus, but if it happened in the 15th century, people would laugh at you, for you would be considered poor.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |