The Nutmeg Trail: Recipes and Stories Along the Ancient Spice Routes

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An extensive timeline chronicles the influence of spices from 50,000 BCE to the present. There are also fascinating spice facts, as of how Alexander the Great added saffron to his shampoo, how Japanese samurai ate chilies to increase their courage, and how peppercorns were used in fourteenth-century Italy as a form of currency. A transportive blend of stories and meals that are as enlightening as they are piquant.” Publishers Weekly (starred review) The third cookbook by award winning food writer Eleanor Ford, The Nutmeg Trail shares the recipes and stories of how “ centuries of spice trading and cultural diffusion changed the world’s cuisine“. It’s a truly gorgeous book full of gloriously vivid illustrations, richly narrated history, and stories and food writing that bring the past to life.

Beautifully presented, Eleanor Ford's The Nutmeg Trail blends delicious recipes with fascinating spice-trading history and travel writing flair to concoct a book that’s informative, inspirational and bursting with wonderful ways to spice-up your menu…. a spicy slam-dunk of a book.” Love Reading Expert Review Eleanor Ford’s The Nutmeg Trail is an illuminating and inspirational guide to the rich, tumultuous history of the ancient spice routes and how spices not only changed the course of history, but how they influence the food we eat today.” Word of Mouth Consider also a Mint sambal: Grind together in a food processor 30g (1/3 cup) grated coconut, leaves from a small bunch of mint, 1/2 red onion, 1 garlic clove, 3 green chillies with or without their seeds, and a pinch of salt. Add a squeeze of lime juice and a little water to loosen the blades. Interspersed with the recipes are essays about ‘ The kebab empire‘, ‘ Layers of spice and rice‘, ‘ Curry and conquerors‘, and ‘ Redrawing the world‘. For those of you who love food writing as much as I do, these are a delight.The eclectic collection of recipes from across the world will make the reader want to head straight into the kitchen to conjure up heady meals to share with their family and friends.” Anissa Helou It’s not all about heat, spices can add depth, flavour and layers to cooking, as this wonderful cookbook reveals.” Evening Standard A tantalising treatise on the intoxicating world of spice. Eleanor has coupled essays on the history and cultural significance of spices with very enticing recipes. I cannot wait to read, meander and cook my way along the ancient spice routes that Eleanor has so cleverly traced in this beautiful book.” Helen Goh Chapters are prefaced with a glorious tiger artwork featuring around it the spices covered in that chapter. I adore these and would happily hang them on my walls!

In this richly illustrated volume, Eleanor Ford uses recipes as maps as she takes readers on a culinary journey that weaves through history and around the world. She explores both the flavor profiles and the spread of spices—from cardamom to cinnamon, ginger to sumac—and provides fascinating insights such as how nutmeg unites the spice blends Indian garam masala, Lebanese seven spice, French quatre epices, Moroccan ras el hanout, and Middle Eastern baharat, lending its bittersweet, fragrant warmth to them all. Award-winning writer Eleanor Ford’s recipes and stories explore how centuries of spice trading and cultural diffusion changed the world’s cuisine. A unique and enlightening guide to cooking with spice, the book looks at their flavour profiles and how they can be used, combined and layered – how some bring sweetness, others fragrance, heat, pungency, sourness or earthiness. The Nutmeg Trail offers a historical account of the spice trade with invaluable advice on the use of culinary spices - how to prepare and combine them, when to introduce them, and what delights to expect.Mouth-watering.” John Keay The Nutmeg Trail is an enhanced look at the flavour profiles that we use in cooking to add that something to a dish. Eleanor examines how spices can be used, combined and layered—how some bring sweetness, others fragrance, heat, pungency, sourness or earthiness to create something one-of-a-kind. Chapters and recipes are divided by spice—by the fire and thunder of ginger and peppercorns, floral petals & bark, chillies, lime & lemongrass, earthy cumin & coriander, plus complex spice blends. Feeling lazy, we had our garlic clove curry on its own with some ready-made naan and it was a fantastic meal. Whilst I agree that it could form part of a larger meal, we thoroughly enjoyed it on its own too.Interwoven with divine recipes and stories, Eleanor Ford’s latest cookbook The Nutmeg Trail is a fascinating culinary exploration of spice, showcasing how centuries of spice trading and cultural diffusion changed the world’s cuisine. Like all of Eleanor’s writing, this cookbook is more than just a recipe book; it’s a history of the spread of spices around the world from cardamom to sumac, it’s a spice map, a travel book, with stories and flavour wheels and writing so gloriously vivid I can’t put it down.” Lara Lee

As you’d expect given the content thus far, recipe introductions share lots of detail about the dish, including where it originated and its original language name. Following the ingredients list and method is an ‘Eat with’ section that gives suggestions on what to serve with the dish; in some cases these contain mini recipes such as the Mint sambal to have with the Garlic Clove Curry. Most (but not all) recipes have accompanying photographs; simply but colourfully styled, these are highly beguiling. In The Nutmeg Trail, Eleanor Ford takes us on a mouth-watering culinary voyage to the fabled 'spiceries', those semi-mystical islands of the East Indies. A heady blend of history, adventure and deliciously authentic recipes, this book will make you hungry!" Giles Milton Next, in ‘ Cultural diffusion along the spice routes‘, Ford looks more closely at the routes travelled by individual spices and the people that traded them; spices didn’t travel alone and as the traders who carried them migrated and settled in new places, cooking techniques and dishes were “ assimilated, adapted, refined and reinvented over and over” in ways that forever changed the cuisines of the world. There was a long and slow mingling of methods, ideas, flavours, and dishes between Asia and Europe, East and West. A fragrant, intoxicating and mesmerising voyage into the history and global spread of spice. With recipes every bit as delectable as the prose.” Tom Parker Bowles I am completely enraptured with The Nutmeg Trail. It is the perfect balance of being fascinating and mouth watering at the same time. Another triumph by Eleanor.” Georgina HaydenSpices, by the time they reached Western Europe and England were hugely expensive, and mainly the reserve of the very wealthy, who relished spices for their scarcity and the resulting display of status they provided – once a spice became more commonplace, novelty-driven nobility moved on to the next new thing. There were high and low periods for this international trade in spices – bustling and profitable in the Roman era, it virtually came to a halt in Western Europe for the thousand years after Rome fell, returning only in the High Middle Ages when European nations reached their economic and cultural height. Ford creates fascinating glimpses into the banquets of Rome, the feasts and celebrations of European courts, and the rises and falls of global trade. From the spice route map to the lists of magical names like tamarind and cassia, from the culinary history to the recipes, this is a book to inhale, to savour and to return to again and again.” The Travel Book Company

What a deep dive this is into the world of spice. . . . And then the recipes! Recipes which allow the reader to travel from Asia to the Middle East along the spice route, taking in so much flavor and so much context on the way." -Yotam Ottolenghi Hotjar sets this cookie to identify a new user’s first session. It stores a true/false value, indicating whether it was the first time Hotjar saw this user. Eleanor Ford is a cook and a historian, a culinary detective and, as she says, a gastronomic archaeologist. What a deep dive this is into the world of spice. It’s a deep-dive, a culinary history, a spice library, anatomy and miscellany. And then the recipes! Recipes which allow the reader to travel from Asia to the Middle East along the spice route, taking in so much flavour and so much context on the way. It’s the green coconut hot sauce from Somalia first up for me, followed by the green peppercorn asparagus from Thailand.”– Yotam Ottolenghi Ford notes that the spice trade lured explorers for centuries, with the value of certain spices exceeding the price of gold. Spice expeditions were both fascinating and exploitative: travels across oceans and along the legendary Silk Road spurred excessive demand and colonial aggression. Spice merchants invented encounters with dragons and fearsome serpents to exaggerate the dangers of their travels and increase the cost of their wares. In this richly illustrated volume, Eleanor Ford uses recipes as maps as she takes readers on a culinary journey that weaves through history and around the world. She explores both the flavor profiles and the spread of spices-from cardamom to cinnamon, ginger to sumac-and provides fascinating insights such as how nutmeg unites the spice blends Indian garam masala, Lebanese seven spice, French quatre epices, Moroccan ras el hanout, and Middle Eastern baharat, lending its bittersweet, fragrant warmth to them all.From humankind’s earliest travels, people have followed and sought out the spice routes. These maritime trading trails acted as the central nervous system of the world, enabling the flow of goods and ideas. Eleanor Ford’s enticing cookbook The Nutmeg Trail explores the global history and use of spices—not just in cuisine, but in medicinal remedies, incense, and aphrodisiacs. InThe Nutmeg Trail, Eleanor Ford takes us on a mouth-watering culinary voyage to the fabled ‘spiceries’, those semi-mystical islands of the East Indies. A heady blend of history, adventure and deliciously authentic recipes, this book will make you hungry!” Giles Milton Garlic Clove Curry is an even bigger revelation! Who would ever have thought to make whole cloves of garlic the main ingredient in a curry? The Sri Lankans is who and this is an absolute stonker of a dish. Despite the relatively short cooking time, the garlic cloves become sweet and tender, contrasting with the savoury curry of onion, coconut milk and spices. We loved this one so much we asked for special permission to share it (instead of one of the shortlist of recipes offered by the publisher) and they generously agreed! There are beautiful recipes along with photos and spectacular illustrations of tigers that I have fallen in love with. It’s a book that will encourage you to use the ingredients that are in your pantry and also try out new things.” Nik Sharma