Love pumpkin spice lattes? Learn some of its spicy history : NPR
A merchant sells spices in a market in Karachi on June 10, 2025.
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Temperatures are cooling and the sun sets sooner: fall is on the way.
And with him, fall goodies such as apple cider, pumpkin bread and these pumpkin spices too popular.
But before taking a sip of this cinnamon, this nail kindness of the nail of the nail of the nail of the nail of the nail of the week of the week, let’s dive into the history of the word “spicy” for this episode of the Word of the week.
According to the Oxford English DictionaryThe first proof of “spicy” is 1562, in the writings of William Turner, naturalist and religious controversial.
“For a very long time, spicy meant exactly what it is supposed to be: which contains spices, or redo -spice redolent”, Anatoly Liberman, linguist at the University of Minnesota.
A pumpkin spice drink rests on a table in a Starbucks in New York on August 24, 2023.
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But it was around the 19th century, that the files show that people began to use spicy in a less literal way, he said. It can also refer to “racy” or “engaging provocateur” in reference to scandalous gossip or something of the high.
“It’s intelligent. It’s elegant. That’s all that feels like giving something lively, poignant, interesting, away, biting, whatever you want,” said Liberman.
A look at a “spicy” story
Spices have been exchanged for thousands of years, according to Michael Krondl, author of The taste for conquest: the rise and the fall of the three large spice cities.
Archaeologists have found pepper grains in the nose of the ancient pharaohs and the Romans used to import huge amounts of black pepper for cooking India and tons of cinnamon, which they would burn like incense, he said.
Spices, such as cinnamon, cloves, pepper and ginger, “were always considered extremely exotic and, therefore, they were very popular,” Krondl said. They were also associated with holiness and exoticism.
“Medieval Europeans would think that the dead saints feel spices. For you to sniff the coffin of a saint and that it would be redolent of cinnamon and clove and nutmeg,” Krondl said.
Women buy dried fruits, nuts and spice traders in the old Shapur bazaar in the south of Tehran on August 5, 2025. (Photo of Atti Kenare / AFP) (Photo of Atta Kenare / AFP via Getty Images)
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The spices, of course, were generally cultivated in tropical places such as India, Africa and Southeast Asia, and far from the European aristocracy, which wanted these spices and was willing to pay high prices for them, he said.
And they were ready to travel far to get it.
The Europeans sent famous explorers like Vasco Da Gama and the poorly managed Christopher Columbus to find the original sources for spices and to bring hundreds of books.
Dutchman has created the Eastern Commercial Company in 1602 (which lasted until 1799) To take advantage of the spice trade. It has become a global company that has relied on forced work and slavery.
“No one needed spices except for share capital,” said Krondl. “They were almost this arbitrary marker of wealth and privileges, and yet the world was completely transformed by the spice trade.”
McCormick spice containers are displayed on a grocery shelf on June 26, 2025 in San Anselmo, California.
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How were spices used
Once in the hands of these rich Europeans, they would not always use spices to add flavor to food or drinks (pumpkin spices were several centuries to materialize). They think they had healing properties.
“They were food and medication simultaneously,” Krondl said, especially in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.
If someone was sick, he could receive different types of spices depending on his personality or status, he explained.
As Liberman explained, around the 19th century, “spicy” became a word to refer to everything that gives us a kind of clear or pronounced response.
By thinking about this tasty story, allows us to realize that we use these spices in many ways similar to those of Antiquity, said Krondl.
“We do the same as the Romans,” Krondl said. “We warm these spices in candles – instead of burning them on pyres to flavor our rooms.”
