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The Value of ‘The Queen’ through Commodity Exchange

 

Introduction

 

The “Queen of Spices” or cardamom is nowadays one of the most important spices in global world trade, just coming after black pepper (Prabhakaran Nair, 2006, 182). Its Latin name is Elattaria Cardamomum Maton and its success as a spice crop and commodity is attributed to its pleasant aroma and taste (Ravindran & Madhusoodanan 2002, 1). Yet such a short explanation for its contemporary appeal and commercial success, with Guatemala currently being one of the world’s largest producers of cardamom (Prabhakaran Nair 2006, 182), does not pay credit to the historical and global trajectory of this author’s favorite spice. A search in the academic literature about the historical trajectory of the spice led to the insight that knowledge about its trajectory is diffused and limited. This paper is therefore dedicated to structuring and shedding some (more) light on the social life of this commodity, or “… any thing [emphasis in text] intended for exchange (Appadurai 2012, 9). Through such a perspective on exchange, which is specifically about the broad questions as to why and how cardamom was traded in different places and times, it might become possible to problematize the wider field of global food studies.

 

Food studies, or food history, is a quite interdisciplinary endeavor, which developed in the twenty-first century in order to problematize the idea of national cuisines (Cwiertka, Elias and Pilcher 2015, 6). Food dishes are based on several ingredients that are often not for example typically Dutch or Indian by origin and practice, just like basic food stuffs. At the same time the trajectories of these food stuffs are also not bound to national boundaries, but have global trajectories besides their social lives (Gerritsen & Riello 2016, 3). However within this cross cultural understanding of distinct food stuffs trajectories and/or exchange across national boundaries, any thing’s trajectory can be called ‘global’ or even ‘transcultural’. While I do not want dismiss the global perspective in widening academic research in describing the trajectories of things, it should be mentioned that from a theoretical point of view such a perspective is rather thin. Instead this paper aims, as mentioned above through a focus on exchange and by describing the global trajectory of the spice cardamom, to problematize the idea of the global within food studies.

 

In order to problematize this global aim of food studies, this paper will attempt to answer the following research question: How do the exchange(s) of the commodity cardamom relate to its value at different localities or scales within its global or regional trajectory? This focus means that this paper will give less attention to cross – cultural or hybrid cultural processes concerning the creation of (art) object representing food(s), but rather attempts to understand these processes in connection with the exchange of a food. This will be done through a reappraisal of Appadurai’s 1983’s classical chapter: Introduction: commodities and the politics of value. After this first section, a second section will describe cardamom’s global trajectory in the time frame of approximately 1500 – 1800. Within this historical period, several changes occurred within the Asian market through the arrival of Europeans. Yet before that cardamom was already traded through the Islamic world to Europe, so the second section will also briefly pay attention to that period. The third section will attempt to connect the uses of cardamom with its (cultural) value(s) and exchange, after which the concluding section will argue that neither a global/holistic or cross – cultural focus is a sufficient or helpful framework in understanding why and how a specific commodity has been traded worldwide.

 

Theory: The Politics of Value

 

The book The social life of things is a collaboration between historians, archeologists and anthropologists, with the common aim to learn from each other in dialogue and develop models for the combination of system with process (Farris 2012, x. In: Appadurai 2012, x): meaning that it aims to describe trajectories of food with how and why it is traded. The theoretical process that Appadurai describes concerns an argument that “… what creates the link between exchange and value is politics [emphasis in text] (Appadurai 2012, 3)”. Commodities are the things that are exchanged within this theoretical process, which aims to explain why and how a commodity becomes valuable and therefore exchanged. How this works at different social scales, or is related between different levels, is an important question in order to develop a better theoretical argument about food’s trajectories. The global is only an overarching scale in this regard, which might fail to grasp the complexity of ‘local’/other contexts.

 

When food historians or scholars only seem to apply the concept ‘social life’ to their description of the trajectories of certain ‘global’ food stuffs, it gives room to doubt whether those scholars have given enough attention to the complete theoretical arguments made by Appadurai. First of all Appadurai aims to focus on the “… total trajectory [emphasis of text; of a commodity] from production, through exchange/distribution, to consumption (Appadurai 2012, 13)”. At first sight such an understanding of commodities’ (global) social lives seems not really different from the understanding of Gerritsen & Riello, who aim to describe the complete trajectories of object before they for example become part of a collection and are then also studied in this way (Gerritsen & Riello 2016, 10). They also refer to the same text of Appadurai, although things do not have simply “… economic value ‘in motion’ … (Gerritsen & Riello 2016, 11)”. Rather value “… is a judgement made about them [the objects] by subjects … with some distance between [buyer and seller, which] … is overcome … through economic exchange … reciprocally … (Appadurai 2012, 3)”. This short discussion of Simmel’s argument by Appadurai points to a wider process of exchange that needs to be understood, which is also problematized and elaborated upon by Appadurai himself. Yet it is also important to note that Gerritsen & Riello are primarily discussing the place of food in art, which can be part of a different process and trajectory then spices.

 

Appadurai attempts to conceptualize this process, the social life of commodities, by looking at things as being in a commodity situation when it is eligible for exchange for another thing (Appadurai 2012, 13). This situation can be broken down in three aspects: a commodity phase, candidacy and context (Ibid, 13 – 14). The first aspect lends way to understanding that objects can move in and out of the commodity phase, meaning that they can acquire different values and become (de)commoditized due to “… a shifting compromise between socially regulated paths and competitively inspired diversions (Ibid, 17)”. In short this means that social groups can decide to protect things from becoming exchanged, or that people/groups can attempt to make objects open for exchange and make them valuable. The former is partly regulated through the commodity candidacy, which refers to the cultural classifications of objects. In the exchange of commodities these cultural classifications are not completely shared between buyer and seller, thus Appadurai speaks about regimes of value: the sharing of value (in an exchange between buyer and seller) in regards to a particular commodity can be quite different in other situations (Ibid 2012, 15).

 

The final aspect of the process is the commodity context, and this also makes the exchange of values political. The context refers to social arenas in which commodities are exchanged (Ibid 2012, 15). The exchanges of objects in these arenas is only possible through social agreements. “What is political about it is the constant tension between the existing frameworks [cultural classifications] … and the tendency of commodities to breach these frameworks [through diversions] (Ibid, 57)”. Some interest groups want to keep control over the value of certain objects/commodities, an important strategic element in this regard being knowledge about the commodity. Especially luxury goods are subject to such a process, as elite/interest groups in this way can keep control over commodities and (remain in) have power over its use and set the demand (Ibid, 38). Knowledge, about different aspects concerning the commodity, like its production or ‘authenticity’ (Ibid 44), then enables such groups to control demand, which at the same time can change through continuous interactions and negotiations in exchanges (Ibid, 56).

 

What does the theoretical work of this anthropologist mean for the historical study of food and its global trajectories? What does it mean to apply anthropological theory to food studies, in particular to the global trajectory of the spice cardamom? One remark that can be made is that this theory might be too general and broad and is not applicable to all periods or (local) contexts and all (kinds of) objects, in particular because of the broad definition of ‘value’ and cultural frameworks and/or classifications used by Appadurai. Gerritsen & Riello seem to define value as “… sharing the same stylistic references, perception of space, or relations to material culture on a broad sense (which define the cultural and financial values of the objects) (Gerritsen & Riello 2016, 19)”. This quote shows that Gerritsen & Riello do not necessarily disconnect cultural value from economic/financial value, although their use of the words references and perceptions seems to suggest a tendency that they see certain cultural values as similar to economic/financial value. Perhaps this is also a result of the contribution they discuss, which “… embrace a micro – methodology reminiscent of the ‘cultural biography1’ [emphasis in text] approach … (Ibid, 23)”. Such an approach is characterized by a focus on particular objects’ trajectories, or commodities according to Gerritsen & Riello (Ibid, 23). But commodities are not the same as objects, they are a distinct phase in an object’s social life and an objects’ value does not relate to certain distinct categories in isolation: it is a process of becoming valuable, of which both economic and cultural value(s) are a part. Describing a global trajectory of a food, like for example cardamom, requires Appadurai’s holistic approach to process instead of trajectory.

 

At the same time the use of Appadurai’s theory can problematize the term ‘global’ in relation to ‘place’, because it enables food research to start asking how the values and uses of food at (local) distinct cultural contexts or geographies is connected to the material connections/paths between them (Cook & Crang 1996, 148). This still entails a ‘global’ perspective, as the connections can be wide and far, but the process(es) through which it comes into being is(are) not necessarily global. Anthropologists’ focus on small scale socio – cultural dynamics, of which Appadurai’s theoretical work is a result, is useful in focusing on such none global processes, but at the same time “… long-term shifts and continuities … (Rogers 2006, 637. In: Schorkowitz 2012, 52) should not be forgotten. Additionally, or essentially, this entails the question of what the connections are between different scales (Watson, 618). Anthropologists seem to study one scale quite locally, while historians and other disciplines seem to study other scales. Perhaps through food studies it becomes easier to combine these scales. The following sections will explore whether this can become possible by using Appadurai’s theory, through a broad focus on the value of the commodity Elattaria Cardamomum Maton.

 

Places where and from Cardamom was traded

 

Exchange in cardamom seems to be going back to ancient times, as there are plant remains found of cardamom at an ancient port known as Quseir al-Qadim that was a trade hub in the Roman period (Van der Veen & Morales 2014, 54). Quseir al-Qadim was located at the Red sea, in the territory of present day Eqypt. Additionally there are mentions of the use of cardamom in ancient texts in ancient Greece and Rome (Ravindran & Madhusoodanan 2002 2), although in that case it is not sure whether that is the same cardamom as the one found in Quseir al-Qadim. While Van der Veen & Morales refer to the same text as Ravindran, namely a medical text by Dioscorides called Materia Medica from around 40-90 AD (Ravindran & Madhusoodanan 2002, 2; Van der Veen & Morales 2014, 61), Ravindran refers to another text by Dioscorides in which the greek describes the cardamom used as having a bitter taste (Watt 1872. In: Ravindran & Madhusoodanan 2002, 2). This led Ravindran to conclude that the cardamom used in ancient Europe, was not the Elattaria Cardamomum Maton from India, but rather that the mentioned variety probably came from the Bosporus.

 

After the collapse of the Roman Empire the economy of Europe recovered and soon started again to import goods from India, which had also been done during Roman times. However “… India was [now] a part of the large Asian trading world created with the spread of Islam, and Muslim merchants and states now intervened between Europe and India (Trautmann 2011, 165 – 166). This led to some thinking that cardamom came from Arabia instead of India (Ravindran & Madhusoodanan 2002, 2). However for countries like Spain and Portugal it was known that spices came from “… came from the Far East, but both countries were dependent on Venice as their source, and Venice was the eastern Mediterranean middleman for the hated Moslems at the caravan terminals of Aleppo (now Halab, Syria) (Andrews 1999, 12)”. The Portuguese eventually got a significant presence within the Asian market for spices, starting with Vasco da Gama who set the first Portuguese steps on Indian ground in 1498 (Trautmann 2011, 166).

 

The arrival of the Portuguese gradually changed the Asian market, but this will be discussed later on. For now it is important to describe the Muslim trade, as a focus on Europeans does not do credit to the reality of the spice trade in Asia. Cardamom was traded from the Malabar Coast, which is present day Kerala (South – India) and the place where cardamom grows naturally, to places more North like Surat and Broach (present day Gujarat, India) by Gujarati traders. These same Gujarati traders visited along the Malabar Coast places like Calicut, Cannanore and Cochin (Mishra 1982, 450), as well as to the Middle – East. One of the ports that was frequented during the 17th and 18th century was Mocha along the coast of the Red sea (present day Yemen). According to Um “… Mocha’s trade depended on the constant flow of goods and merchants along the Mocha-Surat route (Um 2009, 29). Cardamom was part of this trade. The dominant group of these merchants, besides royal ships from the Mughal dynasty (Um 2009, 29), were Muslim merchants who dominated the sea trade in spices in the 15th century and came from different places and backgrounds (Prange 2011, 218).

 

In 1510 the Portuguese captured Goa, which had long been an important place for Muslim traders (Andrews 1999, 24). However Prange describes while now the Muslim traders were in direct competition with the Portuguese along the Malabar Coast, they often also cooperated with each other because (among others) the Muslim’s connection to existing trade networks (Prange 2011, 230). Thus the arrival of the Portuguese did not necessarily impact the trade (in cardamom) in this region, as they became part of existing networks. Yet there is no clear record about the amount of trade in cardamom and the information that the above is based on concerns mainly the general trade in spices. This section therefore only describes broadly the places where cardamom was traded, which also included places like Iran and East Africa (Prange 2011, 221). However the production of cardamom eventually grew at the beginning of the 19th century (Ravindran & Madhusoodanan 2002, 3). While outside the time frame of this paper it will be briefly elaborated upon in the next section, as it connects to the following discussion about the value of cardamom.

 

Cardamom’s value

 

An important aspect of Appadurai’s theory is that it aims to be holistic, which in the context of this paper means connecting its cultural uses and values at local places to its exchange and production at different scales. This can be done at different places and times, but first it is necessary to present some basis particularities of cardamom in order to understand its economic value. Agricultural researcher Prabhakaran Nair mentions that cardamom is “… a highly valued spice since time immemorial (Prabhakaran Nair 2006, 182). Prabhakaran Nair refers in this case to Elattaria Cardamomum Maton, which is a distinct kind of Cardamom and in particular the spice that is regarded as having the best taste. In India there are six different species of the genus Ellataria and other genera can be found in Malaysia and Indonesia, although only the former is used in worldwide commercial trade (Ravindran & Madhusoodanan 2002, 2). Another aspect of cardamom, also within a historical perspective on its trade, is its “… specialized growing requirements (Andrews 1999, 95)” that impact its economic value. While the text will return to this, we will first look at the other (political) circumstances impacting its trade.

 

Earlier it was mentioned that Ravindran & Madhusoodanan pointed out that cardamom production rose at the beginning of the 19th century. However it was still regarded as a “… minor forest produce …” and was (presumably therefore) only produced in combination with coffee plantations as a secondary crop (Ravindran & Madhusoodanan 2002, 3). In order to better understand the economic value of cardamom, it is necessary to look more precisely to the economic/colonial practices of different factions in the wider spice trade in and from India. In this way it can be determined whether certain factions have power over the economic value of the commodity cardamom (Appadurai 2012, 38).

 

Trautmann describes how in India there were “ … joint-stock corporations of merchants and the Indian princes who gave them [British & French in this regard] trading privileges and leased them small patches of territory on the coast for their trading posts. These “factories” [emphasis in text], as they were called, were not places of manufacture but essentially warehousing facilities … (Trautmann 2011, 170)”. Trautmann describes these practices to occur around the middle of the eighteenth century, although below similar Portuguese practices will described. Yet in regards to the political aspect of cardamom’s economic value, it is important to notice that the situation of the factories meant that the Europeans did not have a direct control over the production of spices. The production was still in the hands of more local/inland powerholders, who thus also had an impact on the economic value of cardamom. The same also was the case for Muslim merchants in the 15th or 16th century (Prange 2011, 216).

 

The Portuguese made use of similar factories and also did not have control over inland production in the 16th century. Prange, who in an articles describes the pepper trade, shows how the Portuguese had factories near pepper producing areas. However there was an elaborate system of middlemen and inland warehouses or storage places, towards which the pepper was traded (Prange 2011, 218 – 219). Additionally a lot of these trade networks found their way to the ports where there were elaborate Muslim trading communities along the Malabar Coast (Prange 2011, 219). Thus the Portuguese, besides their capture of Goa, were only a segment of the spice trade in the 16th century. This is also indicated by the share of the spice trade, which was in the 16th century much higher to Islamic areas like Yemen, the Red sea and other Islamic areas like Iran. Prange confirms this and connects this to a larger consumption of spices in these areas (Prange 2011, 221). Yet there was also conflict, as the Portuguese attempted to control the spice trade in the Indian Ocean through attacks on Muslim ships or Gujarati ships, the latter of which had strong connections with ports along the Red sea and later on developed a bigger share in the spice trade due to the Portuguese attacks on Muslim ships from the Malabar Coast in the middle and end of the 16th century (Prange 2011, 233 – 234). These overall political developments thus had an impact on the overall spice trade, as several factions attempted to control the exchange in spices (among which cardamom) due to its high value and in this way also control the demand (Appadurai 2012, 38).

 

Looking back to the paragraph of the factories, it is now necessary to note that eventually the demand in cardamom grew. “The system of cardamom collection from naturally growing plants continued until 1803 but demand escalated in later years and this naturally led to establishment of large‐scale plantations in India and Sri Lanka, what was then known as Ceylon (Ridley 1912; In: Prabhakaran Nair 2006, 184)”. Yet the picture is more complex than the story of the factories might seem to tell, as it was not only European entrepreneurs who engaged in setting up these plantations. In two states along the Malabar Coast the production was a monopoly of local governments, while some forestlands were in the hands of the British government and other parts of these forests were in the hands of private cultivators (Prabhakaran Nair 2006, 184). The former local governments “… even mandated that all the cardamom produced be sold to his official representative and sent to a central depot in the Alleppey town in central Kerala, which was then a state port. Here the produce was sold by auction. Principal buyers were Muslims and the best lot, known as ‘‘Alleppey Green,’’ [emphasis in text] was reserved for export (Ibid, 184). The British still regarded cardamom as minor, which was at the beginning of the 19th century.

 

What this all shows, is that first the spice trade was a politically tense undertaking with different factions involved and in different conflicts and collaborations both locally and more international. The latter is indicated by intentions of the Ottoman Empire to control the Indian Ocean spice trade, in which Gujaratis had an important role through their trade to Islamic areas and collaborations with ports on the Malabar Coast (Prange 2011, 234). Secondly spices were not directly traded from one port to the next, but went through intermediaries and local governments who had control and knowledge over these commodities. Thirdly the demand in the commodity cardamom seems to be restricted to Muslim traders even towards the beginning of the 19th century, who traded it to the Red sea and beyond. From there it was transported to places where it was appreciated, like Iran (Prange 2011, 221). Yet it remains inconclusive as to why the commodity cardamom was not traded more to Europe or why there does not seem to be any record about it. Only nowadays the trade of cardamom to Europe and the Americas is increased (Prabhakaran Nair 2006, 181), where people seem to be largely unfamiliar with the spice. However an interesting connection between cardamom’s economic value and cultural value is posed through various substances and mediums (Prange 2011, 212; Narayanan 2015, 136; Flatt 2016, 6), which will be discussed below briefly.

 

Cardamom’s cultural uses

 

Historian Flatt describes the addition of spices to certain olfactory substances, among which was cardamom that were used in magic spells for the conjuring of spirits (Flatt 2016, 3). What is even more interesting is the place where these practices were being performed, particularly in relation to the research question of this paper and the theoretical debate earlier, which was 16th century Deccan court culture in Bijapur. Bijapur is presently located in the Indian state of Karnataka, one of the places mentioned where Cardamom was also produced (Prabhakaran Nair 2006, 184) and near the Malabar Coast. These practices were part of a wider understanding about the relation between the body, the cosmos and external forces, which were exercised by the Islamic sultanates in the Deccan (Flatt 2016, 15). This Islamic connection is quite important to notice, as Flatt also mentions the presence of a group of Iranian intellectuals at Bijapur court (Flatt 2016, 5). This shows a connection between beliefs exercised both in India and Iran, which is also indicated by the inclusion of cardamom in receipts in Indo – Persian cookbooks in the Safawid period of present day Iran in the 16th century (Narayanan 2015, 136).

 

In a wider perspective this connection between Iran and the Indian Deccan might explain to a certain extent why the commodity cardamom was traded mostly by Muslim traders from the Malabar Coast to the Red Sea and Europeans seemed to generally regard it as a minor spice. The reason thus is the sharing of cultural connotations concerning the spice cardamom, which was related to its economic value. The commodity candidacy of cardamom was influenced by these cultural classifications, making it part of a wider regime of value that was shared at different places and between different groups. Yet the Europeans seemed not to have been part of this, although might have impacted the economic value of the commodity cardamom through the effort of the Portuguese and other European/Ottoman powers to control the spice trade. Still the economic value of the commodity cardamom in its commodity phase in the Indian Ocean trade might also have been strongly influenced by the difficulties involved in its production. Thus more research would be required in order to understand the balance between its cultural and economic value, although it should be clear that the two are in certain sense interrelated.

 

Conclusion & Discussion: the interregional process of the ‘Queen’s value

 

The last section clearly indicates that food has a cross-cultural aspect to it, in particular to its use and the categories that are attributed to a luxury food as cardamom (Van der Veen 2003, 420). It also shows how the values of a food cannot stand in isolation, but are interrelated. And yet this last remark requires an asterisk, as both values are part of different scales in which its values are negotiated. The economic value of cardamom is part of ‘regular’ economic trade, in which it can become influenced by political developments by those attempting to control the trade. Knowledge might play a role in its value, especially in regards to cardamom with its specialized production requirements. Its economic value is then negotiated through the process of supply and demand, as well as through the judgement that is given to the value of the commodity by both parts in an exchange (Appadurai 2012, 3).

 

But as soon as this exchange is over, the object enters a different phase of its social life. This phase is its actual use or consumption, which can be a quite different scale and is more influenced by cultural ideas and beliefs regarding its medical properties or influences on the body. Properly understanding this scale requires focused research on its local practices, which might be comparable to practices at other places in wider research. However truly global research on food, whether in regards to its economic or cultural value, should refrain from either focusing on the spread of cultural values or solely its economic exchange. The use and trade of cardamom seem to have largely restricted itself from the Malabar Coast to different places in the Maghreb in the 16th century and even into the 19th century, while its use in Europe seemed negligible: at least there is no clear bibliography to be found about it. The economic exchange was thus rather international or interregional instead of global, influenced by cultural uses at distinct places. Nothing is truly global, but follows certain paths. These paths can be influenced by politics, although not in a way that it influences a demand that is influenced by certain cultural ideas pertaining to the commodity and/or food object.

 

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