Friend of the Silk Road Gourmet, Sasha Martin of Global Table Adventure has prepared Omani Kofta from a recipe donated by yours truly. The recipe is for sausages that can be made from beef or lamb and flavored with cumin, and cinnamon. These are then bathed in a rich zucchini sauce full of parsley and mint. Delicious, easy to prepare, and as the photo of … Read more
We take so much for granted these days. Almost every household cupboard has ground cinnamon or cinnamon sticks in them. Mass produced cinnamon is cheap and readily available at almost every market and even higher quality cinnamon sticks from the far reaches of the globe are accessible and relatively affordable via the internet. In times past, however, spices were rare and expensive and significant portions … Read more
I’ve written a lot about the participation of Asian nations in Silk Road trade, but what I haven’t considered enough is the effect of the Silk Road on Europe. The Silk Road and its spice trade played important parts in shaping early modern Europe, and it was no less than the price of pepper, cinnamon and cloves in the mid-fifteenth century that forced the Portuguese … Read more