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Comment by ucaetano | Hacker News Reader

"Spices were the first foods to be subjected to capitalist and imperialist processes of production and distribution."

No. In the Roman Empire Garum (a fermented fish sauce) was produced in industrial scale in the Iberian peninsula and exported as a luxury condiment all across the Empire.

Many other ingredients followed similar production and distribution.

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I don't understand how Garum being an old sauce disproves the point.

A salt-processing town that may be the oldest town in Europe dates to nearly 5000 BC: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solnitsata

Solnitsata doesn't look like it was managed by an empire. Garum was.

But Rome itself was also big into the salt trade. Heck, salt was an important ingredient in garum.

Sure, which disproves the claim even more.

I may be really confused here. How is it that Rome being involved in the salt trade disproves the claim that spices, like salt, were the first foods to be subjected to capitalist and imperialist processes of production and distribution?

> spices, like salt

That's the issue. Spices in the article refer to asian spices in the spice trade, unlike salt, chilli peppers, (which are not native to asia at all), Garum, etc.

No? He literally compares salt to black pepper in the article.

Spices are plants. Salt is a mineral.

Salt is not a spice, it's a salt. [1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spice

Claim: "Spices were the first foods to be subjected to capitalist and imperialist processes of production and distribution."

Evidence: Garum was subject to capitalist and imperialist processes of production and distribution before spices.

Claim is therefore incorrect.

That's before we get into the bullshit of "capitalist and imperialist processes".

Garum is pretty much a spice though. As the father of a half-Cambodian child, i can assure you that fermented fish sauces are treated like a spice and not a side dish.

What, do capitalism and imperialism not exist? I think that the issue here is one of poor wording; spices weren't the first foods to be subjected to the processes of production and distribution, they were they first to be subjected to these processes in the context of capitalism and imperialism.

> they were they first to be subjected to these processes in the context of capitalism and imperialism

Garum was processed and distributed from Roman imperial colonies across the Roman Empire.

And there is no such thing as "capitalist and imperialist processing and distribution". That's just made-up bullshit.

I'm not convinced you actually understood my comment. I'm not saying that processing and distribution in the context of capitalism and imperialism are qualitatively different from processing and distribution in pre-capitalist society (although I'd say they are at least quantitatively different, and it would be an interesting discussion to have); I'm saying that it's possible the author intended to say that spices were the first to be subjected to these processes in the context of capitalism and imperialism, rather than the fairly ridiculous claim that spices were the first foods to be subject to the processes of production and distribution as implied by the original wording.

Sounds pretty imperialist to me, not to mention the Romans where pretty big on the whole imperial thing (the word itself coming from them).

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