Cumin, Camels, and Caravans - A Spice Odyssey by Gary Paul Nabhan (2014) [5 Vers.] {VTS}

Title: Cumin, Camels, and Caravans - A Spice Odyssey
Author: Gary Paul Nabhan
Category: Non-Fiction
Publisher: University of California Press (April 7, 2014)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0520267206
ISBN-13: 978-0520267206

For 3.142857143141480 , an avid lover of camels (and presumably, cumin). To what end or nefarious purpose, who knows? Also, his opinion on caravans remains unknown at this time.



Promotional info/Publisher's summary - "Gary Paul Nabhan takes the reader on a vivid and far-ranging journey across time and space in this fascinating look at the relationship between the spice trade and culinary imperialism. Drawing on his own family’s history as spice traders, as well as travel narratives, historical accounts, and his expertise as an ethnobotanist, Nabhan describes the critical roles that Semitic peoples and desert floras had in setting the stage for globalized spice trade.

Traveling along four prominent trade routes—the Silk Road, the Frankincense Trail, the Spice Route, and the Camino Real (for chiles and chocolate)—Nabhan follows the caravans of itinerant spice merchants from the frankincense-gathering grounds and ancient harbors of the Arabian Peninsula to the port of Zayton on the China Sea to Santa Fe in the southwest United States. His stories, recipes, and linguistic analyses of cultural diffusion routes reveal the extent to which aromatics such as cumin, cinnamon, saffron, and peppers became adopted worldwide as signature ingredients of diverse cuisines. Cumin, Camels, and Caravans demonstrates that two particular desert cultures often depicted in constant conflict—Arabs and Jews—have spent much of their history collaborating in the spice trade and suggests how a more virtuous multicultural globalized society may be achieved in the future."

Reviews:
"Richly embroidered with detail, Cumin, Camels, and Caravans by scholar Gary Paul Nabhan is part history, part geography, part cookbook, and part travel memoir. . . . Interspersed with recipes from various stops on historical spice routes, Nabhan discusses the botany, linguistic history, and trade history of each substance, but far from being dry accounts, they bring the wonder of many ingredients we now view as commonplace into focus; Nabhan's painstaking research has not eclipsed an evident natural knack for storytelling." -Saveur

"Heady historical and cultural study of ancient trade routes. . . . Nabhan adds pungent pinches of botany and gastronomy." -Nature

This torrent contains the original EPUB as well as conversions into MOBI, AZW3, LIT, and large print PDF formats done in Calibre. The front cover of the hardcover edition is also included as well as the generated metadata.opf file. Please seed, and enjoy.

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