Spices

The original English colonies that sprang up along the eastern coast of the United States in the early seventeenth century were engaged in survival. Once these early colonies were established spices did enter the diets of the new colonists. Evidence can be found in the inventories or wills of people of property who passed on to a new generation spices such as ginger, black pepper, nutmeg, and mace. More affluent colonists may also have added saffron, cloves, and cinnamon to their food larders. Most of the spices that entered the colonies came in by way of the Dutch, who, by the mid-seventeenth century, were on their way to ousting the Portuguese from their coastal colonies in South and East Asia, the source points of most of the world’s spices. Eventually Holland was able to control many of the Portuguese spice sources and their products that eventually were housed in Amsterdam. Even in the first colony, St. Augustine, in Spanish Florida, there is very little recorded about spices being imported or used in cooking.