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A
THOUSAND YEARS OF CONFLICT
(THE
FIRST THOUSAND YEARS) |
A.D. 1 - 1000 A.D.
Rome
The last years of the century before the birth of
Christ were ones of the expansion of the power of Rome over much of
the known world. Rome proved to be the equal of Carthage in the Punic
War and so Carthage turned its attention to Spain.
The Second Punic War started in 218 B.C. when Hannibal
crossed the Alps and defeated the Romans in a series of battles.
Fortunately for Rome, Hannibal was recalled to Africa to face Scipio
only to be beaten at Zama in 202 B.C.
This left Rome in control of the Western Mediterranean
and they moved on to defeat Philip V
of Macedonia 200-197 B.C., then Syria, then Philip’s son Perseus
who was routed at Pydna in 168 B.C. Scipio finally destroyed the
power of Carthage in 146 B.C. This supremecy brought internal strife
and when Sulla descended on Rome in 83 B.C. with 40,000 troops he set
the precedent for rule by strength of arms. By the turn of the
millennium Rome’s agriculture was in decline and Africa became
the source of its grain supply.
By 55 B.C. Pompey
controlled Spain and Africa, Crassus
Syria and Caesar campaigned in Gaul
where he briefly invaded Britain. The Senate elected Pompey sole
consul in 52 B.C. on the death of Crassus and demanded the disbanding
of Caesar’s army in 49 B.C. Caesar
and his legions marched on Rome and by 45 B.C. the Pompey cause was
crushed and Caesar was declared dictator for life. This did not prove
to be long as he was murdered in the following year and a struggle
for power ensued culminating in the suicide of Antony and Cleopatra
after the Battle of Actium in 31 B.C. leaving Octavian
- later Augustus - undisputed ruler.
The Augustian period began a cultural golden age that
lasted until the death of Nero in 62
A.D. when lack of an hereditary Emperor resulted in the Roman world
being split into four.
Claudius I
completed the conquest of Britain 41 - 54 A.D. after they had being
paying tribute to Rome for nearly one hundred years and London was
founded in 50 A.D., later to be made capital in the ninth century by
King Alfred.
Rome broke the Arab spice monopoly in 40 AD and by 92
AD were building special warehouses in Rome for pepper, such was its
importance. They introduced paid chefs and many town houses had a
large grill, vast preparation tables and complex masonry cookstoves.
Fish sauce had originally come from Greece but was raised to an
artform in Rome as confirmed by Apicius.
Almost all dishes had a sauce or dressing and garum, the fish sauce,
was in wide use.
In 40AD, Apicius wrote the first great cookery book, ‘De
Re Coquinaria’, during the reign of Tiberius, and Rome
spread its culture around much of the known world. The Greeks had
advocated fruit as a dessert, but the Romans added vegetables and
lettuce as an hors d’oeuvres.
Most products known today were in use before Christ
was born, with only spinach, celery, rhubarb, cauliflower, broccoli
and Brussels sprouts to be added later in the Mediterranean and yam,
water chestnut, bamboo, eggplant, lemon, lime, orange, clove, mace
and tarragon in Asia.
The new religion of Christianity
had little international effect for the first two hundred years of
its existence, being generally regarded as as a strange offshoot of
the Jewish religion. The gods of Rome had been the old Aryan gods
linked with Greece. The intelligencia had no gods, so the gods of the
East filled the vacuum in the first two centuries as Christianity
quietly grew under the impetus provided by Paul.
The first such religion to become popular was the
worship of Isis, wife of Osiris from Eqypt, followed by that of
Mithras. Finally the worship of the Emperors themselves as gods took hold.
In 234 AD the last emperor of the Severus Dynasty was
murdered and the Roman Empire descended into a period of constant
civil war. The Christian Church was blamed for much of the breakdown
and in 250 AD an edict outlawing the religion was issued leading to a
period of great persecution.
The strife continued until the eventual emergence of Constantine
as a power in the Roman Empire. He brought back the period of
prosperity, and ended the persecution of the Christians by making it
the official religion of the Empire.
In 330 AD he founded Constantinople as the new capital
of the Roman Byzantine Empire as a bullwork against the barbarian
hoards. Situated in northeast Algeria on the site of Cirta, the
capital of Numidia, it stood firm until it became the centre of the
Ottoman Empire in 1453 AD. It soon became the centre of culture and
the spice trade, attracting goods from all over the East including
cloves and nutmeg from the Moluccas. The Arabs raided it constantly
from 634 AD and it was Alexius I’s appeal to the Pope in Rome
for help that brought about the First Crusade 1096 - 99 AD.
In the fourth century, the first Christian World
Council was held creating the ‘Trinity’ and outside
pressures on Rome began to appear. In 408 AD Alaric
the Visigoth attacked Rome and was famously paid 3000 lb
of pepper plus gold, silver, silks and furs to lift the blockade. It
was all rather pointless as three years later he sacked the city anyway.
As Roman influence broke down, numerous challenges to
its authority and culture arose and it was not until 451 AD that the
next major force appeared in the shape of the fearful Attila
and his Huns. As devastating as they were, the Huns had little effect
on world cuisine, and little more of note occurred for many years but
it did bring the development of Western cuisines to a standstill.
The only other notable contribution of Italy to world
cuisine in this period was the first appearance of the pizza in Gaeta
between Naples and Rome in 997 AD.
The
Middle East
Rome held sway in Egypt from 30 B.C. to 641 AD and had
considerable influence as a centre for cultural development.
Arabs enjoyed the monopoly of spice trading until 40
AD when Rome took over and the Middle East had little influence on
world affairs accept as a spice supplier until 570 AD when Mohammed
was born. In 622 AD he took his famous Hejira to Medina and eight
years later, Islam was born to become a major power all over the
Middle East and Africa.
In 711 AD the Moors
took over Al Andalus coming from the spice routes, and brought
cinnamon, nutmeg, pepper, aniseed, sesame, cumin, coriander, ginger
and caraway with them. Spices spread throughout Europe and in 982 AD
in England, King Aethelred II levied
a special Christmas and Easter tax, payable in pepper on German ships
coming up the Thames to trade at London Bridge.
Ginger reached Britain by the tenth century after
gaining great popularity in Germany a century before. Saffron started
to be grown in Saffron Walden in Essex and elsewhere in Europe,
caraway was found growing naturally.
The
Far East
As the start of the Christian era dawned in the Middle
East, China was experiencing the Hsin Dynasty
9-23 AD. Emperor Wang, a onetime
courtier, abolished slavery and tried the uphill struggle of
improving the lot of the peasants.
The Hsin was replaced by the Han Dynasty
25-220 AD, which led to a period of strife as government was torn by
conflicting factions. It was under the Hans that the flour mill was
first seen in China.
Little of import, apart from the discovering of how to
make matches by the ladies of the Royal Court in 577 AD, emerged from
China until the Sui Dynasty 589-618
AD, when stronger government reunited the country.
The best period of the millennium for China however,
was the rule of the Tang Dynasty
618-907 AD, when administration was centralized after a period of
disunity. This was the golden age of poetry and culture when printing
first started during the rule of Mung Huang 712-756 AD. The oldest
known printed book is the Diamond Sutra dated 868 AD.
In Japan, meat eating and milk drinking were common
until the late seventh century and only to disappear due to the
teachings of Buddhism which first arrived in Japan from Korea in 500
AD. The result was a ban in the eighth century and the appearance of
sushi. Soy sauce came from the Asian mainland in the eighth or ninth
century but Japanese style soy sauce did not appear until the
fifteenth century. Tea was introduced from China in the ninth century
but popularity faded until it was re-introduced during the Zen Period
in the twelfth century.
India
India was the wonderland in the West for the Chinese
and in 61 AD the Emperor sent a mission to the sub-continent over the
Himalayas which returned in 67 AD and Buddhism returned with it.
India also had an early effect on the Roman Empire
when, in 40 AD, a Greek named Hippolas
discovered that the monsoon winds cut the voyage time to the land of
spice considerably. Soon the Romans had broken the Arab monopoly
bringing pepper from India and cinnamon from Ceylon.
By 335 AD, Samudra Gupta
had risen to power in India, ruling until 375 AD, to become
India’s ‘Napoleon’. But it was Chandragupta
II who subjugated all of the sub-continent north of the
Marmada River bringing 160 years of peace and prosperity and a
resurgence of Hinduism.
In the fifth century the White Huns from central Asia
invaded India and held sway until 565 AD. By 606 AD Harsha
ruled in north India and became the last main Hindu monarch. On his
death the sub-continent dissolved into a series of warring states
until the beginning of the eleventh century.
In 630 AD the new religion of Islam appeared and by
712 AD the Muslims invaded Sind and
their influence over the sub-continent of India and its cuisine started.
Another great influence on Indian cuisine was the
arrival of a boatload of Parsees from
Persia, fleeing the persecution of Islam in 745 AD. They landed at
Gujarat and were allowed to settle there bringing Parsee food to the sub-continent.
The first millennium after the birth of Christ was one
of perpetual war and strife throughout the ‘civilized
world’. Although Rome ensured their culture and cuisine spread
throughout their Empire and periods of great prosperity were enjoyed
in both China and India, the overall effect was to slow down the
growth and spread of food styles and food stuffs the world over.
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