FoundationalConceptsNeuroscience

Because of its popularity as a spice, black pepper was involved in
a robust trade for many centuries between India and Europe that
moved pepper along “spice routes” from India to the Mediterranean.
Multiple traders and political regimes generally needed negotiation
along the way. This made black pepper expensive—and all the more
so in Portugal and Spain, located at the western end of the Mediter-
ranean Sea, for which longer shipping distances and more middlemen
were involved. Enter Christopher Columbus (1451-1506), who was
able to convince the Spanish Crown to finance a voyage westward
across the Atlantic Ocean, in hopes of reaching Asia and having
direct access to black pepper—as well as other great spices, such as
cinnamon, cardamom, and nutmeg—thereby eliminating the need to
pay the high costs associated with bringing pepper and other spices
westward from Asia and across the Mediterranean. Such was the con-
sequence of Europe’s love of black pepper, five hundred years ago.
As we know, Columbus did not reach Asia but ran into the Americas
instead. He found no black pepper in America, but there certainly
was no dearth of other things most interesting, including allspice
(Pimenta officinalis). The fragrant seeds resembled black peppercorns,
and the aroma was similar to cinnamon and clove—hence the name,
bestowed in acknowledgment of its resemblance to multiple Old
World spices.
Flowers are another of the archetypal aromatic things in nature.
Humans have cultivated roses (genus Rosa) for centuries and have
produced variants having flowers of different shapes, sizes, colors and
aromas. Among the chemical components of rose aroma are the mole-
cules citronellol, geraniol, nerol, linalool, citral, and phenyl ethanol.