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On the quest for A Pinch of Spice

Writing A Pinch of Spice has been a quest of curiosity and discovery and I’ve really enjoyed putting together this year’s Counting Down to Christmas. I can’t wait to share it with you. We begin on Saturday 26 November.

In planning my writing for this year’s series I started researching the spices I’m familiar with enjoying at Christmas. There are 28 days in Advent this year and Counting Down to Christmas starts the day before Advent and concludes the day after Christmas. I had to find thirty one spices to write about.

The quest for spices

This quest has been an invitation to me to discover spices used in Christmas dishes in other cultures and places. Spices have been used for as long as the history of people. Across the ages they’ve been prized for their medicinal value as well as their taste and smell. There is a wealth of knowledge about spices spanning thousands of years.

I have been intrigued by the sense of discovery I’ve experienced in researching. I’ve found a couple of spices new to me. I’ve found spices I hadn’t thought of as being associated with Christmas and I’ve read so many facts and stories about spices. I’ve found new information that I didn’t know before. I have been struck by the thought that a spice I have newly discovered is refreshing and novel to me, but this does not mean the spice itself has been newly discovered, just that my discovery of the spice has changed my knowledge and my perspective.

As we begin our Counting Down to Christmas we embark on our own journey of discovery and reflection. It’s an outward journey as we smell and taste spices and other flavours of Christmas and as we get ready for our own Christmas celebrations. It’s also an inward journey of discovery as we draw near to God With Us and reflect and prepare our hearts and minds for the celebration of Christ’s birth.

What’s in this year’s Counting Down to Christmas?

If you missed reading a sample of this year’s Counting Down to Christmas you can find it included in this post.

Some background reading and watching…

A Pinch of Spice stands alone and can be enjoyed daily just exactly as it comes.

However, if you’re interested in finding out a little more about the history of the spice trade, the rest of this post is for you.

The spice trade spreads around the globe

The plants that spices come from are indigenous to specific parts of the globe. Yet their use and prevalance spans the globe. This is not new to us today. The use of spices are recorded in the Bible and other ancient texts. Trading of spices existed long before the birth of Jesus.

For centuries the spice trade was tightly controlled and the source and origin of spices was a mystery. By the 13th Century AD, things started to change and as the quest for spices increased, navigation of the globe changed and the world as it looks today started to emerge. It’s amazing to think that a pinch of cinnamon or nutmeg or ginger was so sought after that it inpsired such significant change.

Read this article about Global Trade in the 13th Century from World History Encyclopaedia written by James Hancock

Read this article about The Spice Trade & the Age of Exploration from the World History Encyclopaedia and written by Mark Cartwright.

Prefer to digest your content visually then this is well worth watching if you have 25 minutes.

The story of the spice trade over many centuries is a story involving greed, power, manipulation, arrogance, brutality and brutality. Such suffering has occurred for so many people in the quest for spices.

I have been very mindful of the tension of pain and difficulty that is woven throughout the story of spice history. In reflecting on these challenges I am reminded of King Herod in the Christmas story. Here too is a king who seeks power at all costs. There is pain and suffering in the first Christmas story and this is also a part of Christmas today.

Every day our email includes a pinch from the Bible story of the first Christmas. Often in our contemporary depiction of the first Christmas we skip over the details found in the Bible, and reduce the story to a sweet child friendly tale with a little baby, lambs, angels, a donkey and a cute little manger scene. The first Christmas story is filled with so much more. In Counting Down to Christmas we honour this ancient story filled with wisdom to guide our journey.

Ancient wisdom and the role of journey

The wise travellers we read of in the Bible, (also known as kings, Magi or wise men) travelled to Jesus from far away lands. They came laden with gifts, including the gift of the spice Myrrh. To visit they baby Jesus, they navigated by the stars, following one bright star in the sky on their journey.

A big part of Counting Down to Christmas is the journey we undertake as we travel through Advent.

In our part of the world, we have a growing respect for navigation by the stars as mātauranga Māori is increasingly valued. Mātauranga Māori encompasses knowledge and wisdom brought to Aotearoa by Māori, and pre-dating European influence. When the ancestors of Maori set out by canoe and journeyed throughout the Pacific and eventually to Aotearoa, they navigated by the stars, the sun and the moon and watched for signs in the clouds and the sea. Like the wise travellers in the Christmas story, these wise journeyers used ancient wisdom to guide their journey across the sea

This story about Canoe Navigation is written by Rāwiri Taonui and comes from Te Ara the Encyclopaedia of New Zealand.

Today, the ancient wisdom and skills of waka navigation are being passed on to a new generation. Skills that were almost lost, are being taught and honoured.The Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa has a current display about waka navigation.

My hope for a Pinch of Spice

My hope in writing A Pinch of Spice that everyone who participates in our Counting Down to Christmas will also have something of a sense of discovery, adventure and curiosity, and experience the thrill of finding something new. I hope too that we will draw from the ancient wisdom found in the first Christmas story and find fresh perspectives to carry us into Christmas and beyond.

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