Audiobook10 hours
The Taste of Conquest: The Rise and Fall of the Three Great Cities of Spice
Written by Michael Krondl
Narrated by Todd McLaren
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
4/5
()
About this audiobook
In this engaging, anecdotal history of food, world conquest, and desire, a chef-turned-journalist tells the story of three legendary cities-Venice, Lisbon, and Amsterdam-that transformed the globe in the quest for spice.
Written in a colorful style that will appeal to fans of Mark Kurlansky and Michael Pollan, this ambitious yet accessible book travels effortlessly from the Crusades to the present day. Michael Krondl explains that it was the desire for spices that got international trade up and running on a scale that had never occurred prior to that time. This explosive growth of the spice trade led to the successive rise-and fall-of Venice, Lisbon, and Amsterdam.
Krondl, a gifted food writer, travels to each of these great cities and begins his visit with a great meal. Gradually, he merges the menu he's enjoying with the city's colorful past, and readers are off on a gastronomical tour that teaches them not only about food and spice but also about history and commerce.
Written in a colorful style that will appeal to fans of Mark Kurlansky and Michael Pollan, this ambitious yet accessible book travels effortlessly from the Crusades to the present day. Michael Krondl explains that it was the desire for spices that got international trade up and running on a scale that had never occurred prior to that time. This explosive growth of the spice trade led to the successive rise-and fall-of Venice, Lisbon, and Amsterdam.
Krondl, a gifted food writer, travels to each of these great cities and begins his visit with a great meal. Gradually, he merges the menu he's enjoying with the city's colorful past, and readers are off on a gastronomical tour that teaches them not only about food and spice but also about history and commerce.
Related to The Taste of Conquest
Related audiobooks
Delicious: The Evolution of Flavor and How It Made Us Human Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5On Spice: Advice, Wisdom, and History with a Grain of Saltiness Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Bite-Sized History of France: Gastronomic Tales of Revolution, War, and Enlightenment Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A History of the World in 6 Glasses Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The American Plate: A Culinary History in 100 Bites Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Tasting the Past: The Science of Flavor and the Search for the Origins of Wine Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Empire of Booze Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Book of Spice: From Anice to Zedoary Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Taste of Empire: How Britain's Quest for Food Shaped the Modern World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Women in the Kitchen: Twelve Essential Cookbook Writers Who Defined the Way We Eat, from 1661 to Today Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Eight Flavors: The Untold Story of American Cuisine Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Grape, Olive, Pig: Deep Travels Through Spain's Food Culture Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Invention of the Restaurant: Paris and Modern Gastronomic Culture, 2nd edition Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFor All the Tea in China: How England Stole the World's Favorite Drink and Changed History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Language Food: A Linguist Reads the Menu Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Drink: A Cultural History of Alcohol Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Chile Peppers: A Global History Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Short History of Coffee Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5And a Bottle of Rum: A History of the New World in Ten Cocktails Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Pilsner: How the Beer of Kings Changed the World Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Kingdom of Rye: A Brief History of Russian Food Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Stories from The Italian Country Table: Exploring the Culture of Italian Farmhouse Cooking Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Fasting and Feasting: The Life of Visionary Food Writer Patience Gray Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Truth about Baked Beans: An Edible History of New England Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Food and Wine of France: Eating and Drinking from Champagne to Provence Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5On the Noodle Road Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Geography of Oysters: The Connoisseur's Guide to Oyster Eating in North America Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Cheddar Gorge: A Book of English Cheeses Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Civilization For You
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/51177 B.C.: The Year Civilization Collapsed: Revised and Updated Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Life in the Middle Ages Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Curious History of Sex Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Origins of the Gods: Qesem Cave, Skinwalkers, and Contact with Transdimensional Intelligences Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Mental Floss History of the World: An Irreverent Romp Through Civilization's Best Bits Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Babylon: Mesopotamia and the Birth of Civilization Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Discoverers: A History of Man's Search to Know His World and Himself Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Fabric of Civilization: How Textiles Made the World Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Summary of The Selfish Gene: 40th Anniversary edition by Richard Dawkins Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Rise and Fall of Ancient Egypt Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A People's History of the World: From the Stone Age to the New Millennium Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Age of Wood: Our Most Useful Material and the Construction of Civilization Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Concise Commentary on the Bible - Book of Matthew Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Summary of Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Upheaval: Turning Points for Nations in Crisis Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Civilization: The West and the Rest Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Forbidden Gospels and Epistles Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Lost Empire of Atlantis: History's Greatest Mystery Revealed Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Gene: An Intimate History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Summary of Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Song of the Cell: An Exploration of Medicine and the New Human Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Denisovans: The History of the Extinct Archaic Humans Who Spread Across Asia during the Paleolithic Era Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Perfectionists: How Precision Engineers Created the Modern World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Energy: A Human History Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Cannibalism Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Consider the Fork: A History of How We Cook and Eat Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Knowing What We Know: The Transmission of Knowledge: From Ancient Wisdom to Modern Magic Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for The Taste of Conquest
Rating: 3.8947368421052633 out of 5 stars
4/5
19 ratings3 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Very interesting. The author has an interestingly snarky take on the actions of people in the past - too many popular historians spend a lot of time deploring the awful actions taken back then ("but of course they didn't really know better at the time"); Krondl reports what was done and what was thought of it at the time with a little more detachment, and the aforementioned snarky take - greed is a big motivator (then, and he doesn't quite audibly say "and now too"). The book's in three sections - well, four. Three for the three cities, then one talking about the modern world - McCormick, and Indian scientists studying the biology of the spice plants, and so on. I enjoyed the part about Venice mostly because I play in the SCA, and the discussions of medieval recipes and spice use resonated well for me. Then Lisbon, which was even more interesting because I've visited (though I don't think I saw most of what he's talking about - Lisbon lost most of its spice-funded architecture in an earthquake, and I don't think I visited the remaining places that he mentions). Amsterdam was less interesting to me, mostly because it focused on the machinations of a corporation - a new concept at the time, but surprisingly similar to what we have nowadays. In all three sections, there are descriptions of recipes (not recipes themselves, just talking about them) that make me really want to try to make them. Everything from Venetian spice cookies to "pasteis de Belem" to clove cheese - yum! The final, modern section didn't really round anything up, or come to any conclusions - it merely continued Krondl's observations up to modern times. Fewer wars, more defenses against spying. The timeline of the book is completely confused - the Venice section actually continues up until well into Amsterdam's monopoly, while Lisbon's power waxed and waned without really altering Venice's. Each section follows (as the subtitle says) the rise and fall of each city as a power in the spice trade - so the first section on Venice goes from the 1200s to the 1700s; Lisbon's part goes from...not sure of the dates. 1500s to 1600s? And then Amsterdam from 1600s to early 1800s, or so. So the discussion of events in the Lisbon section regularly referred to matters already discussed in their effects on Venice. It wasn't actually confusing, at least to me, but it's definitely not a simple, straight transfer of power between the various cities. Fascinating, I've passed it on to several other people. I may reread (which I seldom do for non-fiction), and I'm definitely keeping an eye out for other books by Krondl.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5The tale of the spice trade in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, focusing on Venice, Portugal, and the Dutch East India Company. Krondl draws upon sources from sailors' stories to old recipes to trade routes. Unfortunately, this book is very poorly organized and the history Krondl relates is tangled in innumerable tangents. I still don't know why the Portuguese discovery of their own spice route would have stopped the Venetian trade, for instance. There are hints of breadth to this history: he notes that the Ottoman takeover of Mamluk Egypt in 1516-7 may have been partially caused by the fall in revenue from taxing the Egyptian spice trade that occurred when the Portuguese Empire enforced a spice monopoly for themselves, for example. But this is, overall, not a successful history: too jocular to be serious (with no citations! come ON!), too confused to be interesting.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Taste of Conquest is a history of spice as told through the stories of three European cities: Vienna, Lisbon and Amsterdam. It's wide ranging, occasionally glittering and sometimes frustrating. I listened to the audio version which is not recommended, many passages need more time to reflect on then a fast moving audio book. The narrative or "plot" can be choppy to non-existent so it rewards the reader whose interested in tangents, anecdotes and information, and unfortunately audio books are not the best format. So while I found it generally interesting while going along, I'm hard pressed to remember much afterward, it didn't sink in. Part of the problem is similar to other books in the genre I've read - Salt, Beef, Banana - the unifying theme is weak for a book-length treatment, and the narrative somewhat uncompelling.