Pepper accounted for some 70 per cent of the spice trade by bulk, but other commodities from further afield – nutmeg and mace, cinnamon, ginger, cloves and turmeric, as well as several largely forgotten exotics such as calamus, asafoetida, ajowan, galangal and zedoary – began to find their way to Europe, and these became even more valuable. For centuries spices were not just the world’s most valued foodstuffs, they were the most treasured commodities of any type. ... Nutmeg and mace were the most valuable because of their extreme rarity.
