Spice Wars

I was debating what to blog about today - spending an unconscionable amount on half an imported black truffle (which I plan on shaving some off tonight to top off a broad bean, spinach and chanterrelle risotto (the broad beans and spinach from the side veg patch) or my delight at finding THE tech solution I have been looking for to how to watch the Simpsons, SBS News and the ABC news which span the time slot 6.00pm - 7.30pm and still get my cooking done, the tv is in a room that is quite separate from the kitchen area and so I have since the renovations had to do some prep pre Simpsons, then watch bits of SBS News while darting in and out from the kitchen hoping to have all cooking away while I catch the first half of ABC News and then sit down to eat (yes, I  admit in front of the tv) during the 7.30 Report - which has at times I confess led to slightly overcooked asparagus or a tad too browned souffle, all of which can now be resolved by simply plugging in a HDTV tuner into my laptop and having that on the kitchen bench.

I was, as I say wondering about which had the most in it to blog about (not ANOTHER blog about the delights of truffles!!!), when I chanced on a fascinating article in the Sydney Morning Herald )SMH) Weekend Edition, November 13-14. Those of you who have wandered over to my Buth Kuddeh website will I hope have seen that I am creating a sort of on-line reference to Sri Lankan cooking, which includes short pieces on the historical influences on the cuisine as it developed over the last 2000 years. I am about to put up a piece about the influence from Arab and Persian traders who established communities in mainly Southern Sri Lanka, and will follow this with pieces on the Portuguese, Dutch and British, the common thread linking these four being the trade with India and Sri Lanka in spices and the chronology of battles to secure control over this for the European market.

The article in the SMH headed 'Canny investors woke up and smelt the spices' will be an interesting coda on the history once I flesh it out. Basically it is about the falling stockpiles of spices in India and what this is doing to the price of them - turmeric increasing by 64% this year which is apparently' three times the gain of India's benchmark stock index' (whatever that means, not being a share market nerd all I understand is that this is a VERY LARGE increase in comparison with your run of the mill portfolio of stocks), with the price on May 6th being a record $357USD for 100 kilograms. The author, Madelene Pearson, goes onto say 'Pepper futures have risen 51 per cent on the National Commodity & Derivatives Exchange this year, compared with a 20 per cent jump in the Bombay Stock Exchange Sensitive Index (I like that, the notion that a Stock Exchange Index could be 'Sensitive', I might even ask it out on a date), and the prices of Pepper on the Exchange touching a record of $499USD per 100 kilograms this week.

Then come some truly staggering figures, well to me, at least. 'India controls 42 per cent of the $2.8 billion world spice trade, and consumes 90 per cent of what it grows'. Now this is interesting to me on a three  counts given the history of colonisation driven by the battle for control of the spice trade. Firstly, the expression 'India controls', which must make the ghosts of Vasco da Gama and the remnants of the Dutch and British East India Companies grind their bones in anger that after all their effort and slaughter the bloody natives ended up with control and are screwing the world royally no doubt in this time of scarcity, to which I say a mighty Yippee!

The second is the implied massiveness of the Indian spice producing industry if 90 per cent is consumed locally and there still is enough to control 42 per cent of the trade with the rest of the world. Granted there are nigh on a billion Indians (there well of course be more given that keeping a sensible census in India is I would think a somewhat Sisyphean task - by the time you get around to a figure you need to start all over again to take account of all those born while you were doing the counting) but this still says to me that it is surprising that the Sub Continent isn't permanently blanketed by a haze off ground spice, and that the monsoon winds heading across the Indian Ocean to the Arabian Gulf (don't you dare blog me about my shonky geography - you get the point) are not still spoken of as perfumed with spices.

Thirdly, I am intrigued that spices can be so expensive that the rise in prices in this commodity bundle alone makes up a substantial part of higher food costs in India which are the biggest contributor to inflation there.

So, an issue I thought was over, alarm at the cost of spices, is not in fact. I await more information to see how what is happening on the Indian market is impacting on the prices of spices here in Australia, if at all, and to see how this new phase in the battle plays out.