Love pumpkin spice lattes? Be taught a few of its spicy historical past : NPR

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Rizwan Tabassum/AFP through Getty Pictures/AFP Temperatures are cooling and the solar is setting earlier: Fall is on the way in which.

And with it, autumnal goodies like apple cider, pumpkin bread and people all-too-popular pumpkin spice lattes.

However earlier than you're taking a sip of that cinnamony, nutmegy, clovey goodness, let's dive into the historical past of the phrase "spicy" for this installment of Phrase of the Week.

Based on the Oxford English Dictionary, the earliest proof for "spicy" is from 1562, within the writings of William Turner, a naturalist and non secular controversialist.

"For a protracted, very long time, spicy meant precisely what it's speculated to be: that which is containing spice, or redolent of spice," Anatoly Liberman, a linguist on the College of Minnesota.

<img src="https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/5760x3840+0+0/resize/1100/quality/50/format/jpeg/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F5d%2F49%2Fb53e5a1a4ca8aa0bf9c8d69d4ef4%2Fap25238405608401.jpg" data-template="https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/5760x3840+0+0/resize/{width}/quality/{quality}/format/{format}/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F5d%2F49%2Fb53e5a1a4ca8aa0bf9c8d69d4ef4%2Fap25238405608401.jpg" class="img" alt="A pumpkin spice latte drink rests on a table at a Starbucks in New York on Aug. 24, 2023." loading="lazy"/> A pumpkin spice latte drink rests on a desk at a Starbucks in New York on Aug. 24, 2023. Richard Drew/AP/AP conceal caption

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Richard Drew/AP/AP Nevertheless it was across the nineteenth century, that information present individuals began to make use of spicy in different much less literal methods, he stated. It could possibly additionally check with "racy" or "engagingly provocative" in reference to scandalous gossip or something tantalizing.

"It is good. It is fashionable. It is something that has the impression of giving one thing sharp, poignant, fascinating, out of the way in which, biting, no matter you need," Liberman stated.

A have a look at some "spicy" historical past Spices have been traded for hundreds of years, in response to Michael Krondl, creator of The Style of Conquest: The Rise and Fall of the Three Nice Cities of Spice.

Archeologists discovered peppercorns up the noses of historical pharaohs and the Romans used to import large quantities of black pepper for cooking from India and tons of cinnamon, which they might burn as an incense, he stated.

Spices, like cinnamon, clove, pepper and ginger, "have been at all times thought of extraordinarily unique, and as a consequence, they have been very extremely valued," Krondl stated. They have been additionally related to holiness and exoticism.

"Medieval Europeans would assume that lifeless saints would odor of spices. So that you'd sniff the coffin of a saint and it could be redolent of cinnamon and cloves and nutmeg," Krondl defined.

<img src="https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/6000x4000+0+0/resize/1100/quality/50/format/jpeg/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fa2%2F25%2F98c7087e43f481255b72bf4300ac%2Fgettyimages-2227937945.jpg" data-template="https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/6000x4000+0+0/resize/{width}/quality/{quality}/format/{format}/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fa2%2F25%2F98c7087e43f481255b72bf4300ac%2Fgettyimages-2227937945.jpg" class="img" alt="Women shop from a dried fruits, nuts, and spice trader's at the old Shapur Bazaar in southern Tehran on Aug. 5, 2025. (Photo by ATTA KENARE / AFP) (Photo by ATTA KENARE/AFP via Getty Images)" loading="lazy"/> Girls store from a dried fruits, nuts, and spice dealer's on the previous Shapur Bazaar in southern Tehran on Aug. 5, 2025. (Photograph by ATTA KENARE / AFP) (Photograph by ATTA KENARE/AFP through Getty Pictures) Atta Kenare/AFP through Getty Pictures/AFP conceal caption

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Atta Kenare/AFP through Getty Pictures/AFP Spices, after all, have been usually grown in tropical locations like India, Africa and Southeast Asia, and much from the European aristocracy, who craved these spices, and have been prepared to pay excessive costs for them, he stated.

And so they have been prepared to journey far to get it.

Europeans despatched well-known explorers like Vasco da Gama and the mis-directed Christopher Columbus on journeys to search out the unique sources for spices and to deliver again a whole lot of kilos of the stuff.

The Dutch created the East India Buying and selling Firm in 1602 (which lasted till 1799) to revenue from the spice commerce. It developed into a world firm that relied on pressured labor and slavery.

"No person wanted spices, apart from social capital," Krondl stated. "They have been nearly this arbitrary marker of wealth and privilege, and but, the world was utterly reworked by means of the commerce in spices."

<img src="https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/4816x3438+0+0/resize/1100/quality/50/format/jpeg/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F71%2Fba%2F69caee234e0cadede8f05ccdd0f4%2Fgettyimages-2222323486.jpg" data-template="https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims3/default/strip/false/crop/4816x3438+0+0/resize/{width}/quality/{quality}/format/{format}/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F71%2Fba%2F69caee234e0cadede8f05ccdd0f4%2Fgettyimages-2222323486.jpg" class="img" alt="Containers of McCormick spices are displayed on a grocery store shelf on June 26, 2025 in San Anselmo, California." loading="lazy"/> Containers of McCormick spices are displayed on a grocery retailer shelf on June 26, 2025 in San Anselmo, California. Justin Sullivan/Getty Pictures/Getty Pictures North America conceal caption

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Justin Sullivan/Getty Pictures/Getty Pictures North America How have been spices used As soon as within the palms of those rich Europeans they would not at all times use spices so as to add taste to meals or drinks (pumpkin spice lattes have been a number of centuries from coming to fruition). They have been believed to have therapeutic properties.

"They have been meals and medication concurrently," Krondl stated, particularly through the Center Ages and the Renaissance.

If somebody was ailing, they could possibly be given totally different sorts of spices relying on their persona or standing, he defined.

As Liberman defined, across the nineteenth century "spicy" turned a phrase to check with something that provides us a pointy or pronounced sort of response.

Wanting again on this tasty historical past permits us to understand we're utilizing these spices in lots of related methods as the traditional instances, Krondl stated.

"We're doing the identical factor because the Romans," Krondl stated. "We're heating up these spices in candles – as an alternative of burning them on pyres to aromatize our rooms."