Perfumes and Spices: Including an Account of Soaps and Cosmetics - The Story of the History, Source, Preparation, And Use of the Spices, Perfumes, Soaps, And Cosmetics Which Are in Everyday Use

PERFUMES and SPICES

Including an account of

SOAPS and COSMETICS

The story of the history, source, preparation, and

use of the spices, perfumes, soaps, and

cosmetics which are in everyday use.

BY

A. HYATT VERRILL

AUTHOR OF FOODS AMERICA GAVE THE WORLD,

MINERALS, METALS AND GEMS, "STRANGE

STORIES FROM NATURE SERIES," ETC.

ILLUSTRATED FROM PHOTOGRAPHS AND DRAWINGS

BY THE AUTHOR

1. Soapbark Tree (Flowers)

2. Bergamot Orange (Flowers and fruit)

3. Frangipani

4. Nutmeg (Fruit in various stages)

5. Rock Rose (Labdanum)

6. Balsam of Peru

7. Rosemary

8. and 9. Capsicum Peppers

10. Monarda

11. Hawthorn

INTRODUCTION

IT SEEMS rather strange that, as a general rule, we know the least about the things which we use the most, though if we think about it, it really isn’t so strange at that. Aeroplanes, radio, television, even automobiles are all comparatively new inventions, and therefore interesting to us. We learn all about them, their history, how they are made, how they function, their uses, and how they benefit us. But in a few years, or a few generations, they, too, will become an old story. In my youth, telephones, electric lights, even bicycles and steam fire-engines were as novel, as wonderful and as interesting as are television and radio today. But we now take such things for granted and as a part of our everyday lives. It all goes to prove the truth of the old saying that familiarity breeds contempt or if not contempt, at least lack of interest.

This is particularly true of the commonest and most essential things we have and use—our clothing, our home furnishings and our foods. Yet many of these would be most sadly missed were we suddenly deprived of them. The time-worn adage about never missing the water until the well runs dry is just as applicable to many other essentials. We scarcely stop to give a passing thought to the salt, the pepper, the flour or any of the many substances we consume daily, but if we were suddenly compelled to do without these, we would be in a sorry plight indeed. Our interest in them would be instantly aroused, and we would learn all we could about their origin, their production or manufacture, and their use.

It may seem at first thought, that neither spices, perfumes nor soaps are really essential to our lives, even if they add to our comfort and enjoyment. And it may seem as if there is little, if any, connection of these three, but they are in reality very closely connected. Many of the spices are among the most important and widely used perfumes. Without perfumes or scents, bath and toilette soaps would be far from agreeable substances with which to wash our face and bodies. On the other hand, some of the materials necessary to the manufacture of fine soaps are equally essential to the manufacture of perfumes, and, when all is said and done, it is the scent of perfume of spices, as much as the taste, which we enjoy.

If you feel that perfumes, spices and soaps are not necessities, just try depriving yourself of all such things. You would find the best of food decidedly flat and unattractive without pepper, mustard, cloves, paprika or some other condiment, and you would be in a sad fix without soap, or even without scented soap. Imagine trying to shave with plain water or with slimy, ill-smelling soft soap. Think what a job it would be to wash dishes, clean house, scrub floors, launder clothes or bathe without soap. And what would the ladies do without delicate perfumes, dainty powders and scented creams?

Even if you fully appreciate the importance of spices, perfumes and soaps, you may still think that there can be little, if anything, interesting or romantic about soap. No doubt you know that all soaps are a combination of fats and alkalis, and you mentally picture a malodorous soap factory, or, if you are well along in years, and were reared in some rural district, you may have memories of the family soap kittle and the tubs of stringy, gelatinous, yellow soft soap which every good housewife used for every cleansing purpose, from washing behind the children’s ears to scouring paint and cooking utensils. But there are soaps and soaps, and the story of the ingredients that enter into them, the purposes for which they are used, and the process by which they are made, are very interesting indeed.

Of course, perfumes go hand in hand with romance, so it is not surprising that the history and story of perfumes should be romantic, for when we consider how intriguing some perfumes are we might reasonably expect to find their story equally intriguing. Nor shall we be disappointed, for there is a very great deal of romance and interest in the stories of perfumes. Most interesting and most romantic of all, however, is the story of spices. In fact, it may be safely said that no one article of commerce has such a romantic history, or has had such an important part in international trade, exploration, and the spread of civilization as have spices.

In this book I have endeavored to tell the stories of spices, soaps and perfumes, to give their sources or origins, their histories, their uses and the processes by which they are prepared or manufactured. Naturally, it is impossible to describe or even to mention, all the spices, cosmetics, scents and soaps known, used, or made. There are more than two hundred different kinds of spices—if we include the various plant products used as condiments or flavorings for food. There are fully five thousand different scents or perfumes in use today, and many more which have been used in the past, and no one but the manufacturers of soaps have any idea of the number of kinds of soap on the market.

Perhaps of the three, the perfume industry is the more technical and more diversified, for not only are perfumes made from a great variety of natural substances, but there are hundreds of artificial or synthetic odors used, in place of the natural scents of flowers, roots, seeds, and oils.

Hence I have made no attempt to include all condiments, perfumes and soaps, nor have I endeavored to produce a volume dealing with the technical features of the preparation or manufacture of these interesting and essential things. Instead, I have aimed to accentuate the interesting, little-known facts about spices, perfumes and soaps; to tell their histories; to describe their origins and their manifold uses, and to create a greater interest in, and a wider knowledge of, the everyday substances that give zest to our foods, pleasure to our nostrils and cleanliness to our bodies and our garments.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

APPENDIX

Complete list of all terms used in connection with perfumes, spices, cosmetics and soaps with definitions and meanings.

INDEX

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

FRONTISPIECE in full color

1. SOAPBARK TREE (FLOWERS)

2. BERGAMOT ORANGE (FLOWERS AND FRUIT)

3. FRANGIPANI

4. NUTMEG (FRUIT IN VARIOUS STAGES)

5. ROCK ROSE (LABDANUM)

6. BALSAM OF PERU

7. ROSEMARY

8 and 9. CAPSICUM PEPPERS

10. MONARDA

11. HAWTHORN

Text Cuts

CHAPTER III

Cassia (Chinese Cinnamon)

Cinnamon

Clove Buds

Nutmeg Fruit and Seed

CHAPTER IV

Black Pepper

Grains of Paradise

Long Pepper

Betel Pepper

Cardamom

Turmeric

Ginger

Capers

Mustard

Coriander

Caraway

CHAPTER V

Allspice

Capsicum Peppers

CHAPTER VI

Vanilla

CHAPTER VII

Saffron

Spikenard

Sandalwood

CHAPTER VIII

Frankincense

CHAPTER IX

Sacred Lotus

Lotus

Sassafras

Stephanotis

Spider-Lily

Florapendula

CHAPTER X

Musk-Deer

Civet-Cat

Balm of Gilead

Benzoin

CHAPTER XIII

Lavender

Cassie

Wallflower

Patchouli

Mock Orange

CHAPTER XV

Broom

CHAPTER XVI

Camphor

CHAPTER XVII

Bouncing Bet

CHAPTER XVIII

Acacia

Sweet Marjoram

CHAPTER XIX

Olives

APPENDIX

Annatto

Artemisia

Bignonia

Bouvardia

Canada Snakeroot

Gorse (Furze)

Hamamelis

Hawthorn

Hyssop

Mimosa

Monarda

Musk Flower

Rue

Linden (Tilleul)

SPICES

I

THE ROMANCE OF SPICES

NO ONE knows when human beings first used spices or what race was the first to improve the flavor of food by means of pepper or some other spice. For that matter, no one knows which of the many spices was the first to be used. But we do know that human beings were using various spices in the most remote times, and that most of the spices which we use today were well known to the ancient Sumerians, Egyptians, Chinese, East Indians and other people of the Old World.

Probably man first discovered the value of spices by accident, just as he undoubtedly discovered the properties of tobacco, the use of cacao, the possibilities of the poisonous manioc and many other foods (See FOODS AMERICA GAVE THE WORLD). And the chances are that the first spice used was some pungent, peppery seed, perhaps mustard, for primitive races always prefer hot condiments, and moreover, the hotter or more pungent the spice the more effectively it conceals the undesirable flavor and quality of foods which are poor or far from fresh.

Originally that was the chief purpose of spices. One of the principal reasons why spices, and especially pepper, were so much in demand in Europe during the Middle Ages, and up to the nineteenth century, was the poor quality of the only foods available and the monotony of a very limited diet. Prior to the Spaniards’ discovery of America Europeans had very few vegetable foods. Such vegetables as potatoes, beans, maize, squashes, and scores of other staple food plants of today were unknown to the civilized world, and all too often the meats were far too gamey to be palatable. Not only did spices improve the taste of foods, but many acted as preservatives. For that matter, ages before spices were known in Europe, the people of Egypt and the East had discovered the preservative qualities of certain spices. Frankincense, broadly speaking, was a sort of spice and with various other true spices was widely used in the preservation of the dead, while spiced meats, differing little from the spiced meats of today, were relished by the ancient Sumerians, the people of India and elsewhere.

Even in the Orient, spices were scarce and valuable, but in Europe they were worth more than their weight in gold until quite modern times. This was particularly true of pepper, which was, and still is, the most widely used, and the most important of all spices. And it also has the most interesting and romantic history. At one time a pound of pepper was deemed the greatest of royal gifts. Its use was restricted to royalty and the extremely wealthy nobles. Taxes and tributes were paid in pepper. At the siege of Rome in 408 A.D., Alaric, king of the Goths, demanded three thousand pounds of pepper as the ransom for the city. When the Genoese captured Caesarea in 1101 each soldier of the victorious army was allowed two pounds of pepper as his share of the spoils. It was pepper, or the lack of pepper, that caused the Portuguese to seek an all-sea route to the Orient and led to their rounding the Cape of Good Hope. It was the need of spices, and particularly pepper, which led to the memorable voyage of Columbus. It was pepper and spices that gave Holland her mastery of the seas and her vast possessions in the East Indies. It was pepper and other spices which caused Britannia to rule the waves and to acquire India, Ceylon, Singapore and her other possessions in the Far East, and it was spices and pepper which were partly responsible for the rise of the American merchant marine, the prosperity of New England’s commerce, and the establishment of our practical monopoly of the so-called China trade."

Although vast quantities of pepper and other spices had been used for ages in Europe, it was not until the eighteenth century that the original sources of pepper and some other spices became known. For countless centuries the civilized world’s supply of spices had been obtained from Oriental markets and was transported by caravan across Asia. But in 1497-98 Vasco da Gama, a Portuguese navigator, rounded the Cape of Good Hope and so blazed a direct trail by sea to the Orient. Although the Portuguese thus secured a monopoly of the spice trade, the source of spices remained a secret, the spices being secured through trade with the Oriental merchants. But by bringing cargoes of spices by sea to Europe, instead of relying upon the long, dangerous and costly caravan transportation, Portugal usurped the place which long had been held by Venice, and Lisbon became the most important and richest of European ports. The Portuguese, however, did not maintain their control of the spice trade for long, and the monopoly shifted from Portugal to Holland, from Holland to England and eventually to America. For that matter, Portugal’s supremacy was indirectly the result of the discovery of America.

Columbus had sailed westward in search of a sea route to the spice lands of the East, and although the Spaniards found their way barred by the New World, the wealth of the Aztecs and the Incas proved far more lucrative than spices, so their ships sailed back to Spain laden