I wonder, why would a country like the Netherlands sail on the other side of the earth for pepper and such...

I wonder, why would a country like the Netherlands sail on the other side of the earth for pepper and such. Couldn't they use something native to make food more decent?

The short answer is no even today the Netherlands doesn't produce the spices of a place like India.

The other part of it is that you are dealing with extremely stratified societies so the super rich would be willing to pay extreme fees in order to get the spices.

It really is kind of odd that spice was the commodity that brought the highest yields. I know most of it was medicinal, and not just taste, but just seems kind of bizarre out of all things for global commerce.

I don't think so. Most people eat several times a day so anything that makes food better is going to be very profitable. There's a reason physiocracy was such a popular theory in the 18th century.

autism

Try finding decent ingredients in a swamp. And besides, why not sail all the way to India if you can make mad bank off of it and cuck the Spanish at the same time.

>go to any european nation not on the Med
>what's the local cuisine?
>potatoes in some form

Outside the Mediterranean, European food is atrocious, simplistic and bland.

Joke's on you, they didn't even have potatoes.

Except I didn't travel to Europe in the 1400's, I did it in 2015.

Which actually makes me wonder, what the fuck did they eat in central europe before they got potatoes? Fucking roots?

Fuck off, goblino

Face it, the Southern United States has better cuisine than central and eastern europe.

Beets mainly.

Porridge, mainly. Flavoured with jam and beetroot.

It is pretty impressive how far they went on in their search for money. Imagine if there was some rock on the moon that you could add to your food and people regularly traveled to harvest it.

...

Vegetable soup. They couldn't even eat raw vegetables because it would make them sick from the poo fertilizer.

el abominacion...

grain

Dios mio la creatura!

Odds are it would be cheaper to synthesize.

>jam before sugar cane

No

*Portuguese
Dutch successes against the Spanish didn't happen too often in the colonies

>what is beet sugar

Not used until the 18th Century.

Then honey. Or just not being autistic and realizing he probably meant preserves.

To be fair, a pound of spices goes a long ass way.

Grass

Preserves need sugar too. Far more sugar than honey can provide which is why you only see jam and preserved appearing after access to large quantities of sugar becomes easier and cheaper.

They got kicked the fuc out of brazil

>I wonder, why would Europeans sail to America for quinine. Couldn't they use something native to gain more resistance to malaria
pure retardation

Marmelade uses citrus.

Everyone else was going so why not

Citrus and what else?

Well, Africans somehow ignored Malaria by using they native practices.

only for like 12 years tho