Pass The Pandowdy Please

Pass The Pandowdy Please — page 1
to market with Marco Would you travel thousands of miles from home for pepper Merchants and explorers like Marco Polo ca 1254-1324 did Hard to believe Imagine a meal with no spices for seasoning and you’ll understand how important flavor is And what we consider commonplace today was once exotic expensive difficult to attain and desirable The European foods that Marco Polo and his neighbors ate often combined tangy and sweet flavors and more closely resembled Indian cooking than modern European food The city of Venice Italy where he lived dominated the spice trade in Europe during his lifetime with ships arriving at the busy harbor carrying spices from Asia People valued spices for both their flavor and health benefits especially pepper ginger cloves saffron and nutmeg Pepper was the most popular spice It was sometimes used as currency and was believed to cure a range ailments from heart disease to eye infections of Feeling tired or sluggish You might be given spicy food for more energy Would you like sugar on your hamburger Cooks once considered sugar to be a spice and sometimes sprinkled it along with nutmeg and cloves on fish vegetables meat and other savory dishes all for the expanding tastebuds of Marco Polo’s world