# Do The Spices Used in Indian Curries Retard Food Spoliage? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [February 24, 2013, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-the-spices-used-in-indian-curries-retard-food-spoliage/651254 "2013-02-24T15:58:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2013, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-the-spices-used-in-indian-curries-retard-food-spoliage/651254/1 "2013-02-24T15:58:50Z")
My Indian friends insist that the spices used in Indian cuisine serve as a preservative against food spoilage. If this is true, eating spicey food would protect you from food poisoning…and in a hot climate like India, this would be important. has anyone tested this? If could cooked a curry to the boiling point (long enough to kill any bacteria), then set it out, would the spices extend the time that the food would be safe to eat? ---
**Author:** ![Swords\_to\_Plowshares](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b38774/32.png) [@Swords\_to\_Plowshares](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Swords_to_Plowshares)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2013, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-the-spices-used-in-indian-curries-retard-food-spoliage/651254/2 "2013-02-24T16:10:36Z")
Well the food isn’t stored in the spices, so I can’t see how it would slow down spoilage. I heard it was to cover up the flavor of cheaper cuts of meat that also may be a little bit past their due date, but still edible. ---
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2013, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-the-spices-used-in-indian-curries-retard-food-spoliage/651254/3 "2013-02-24T16:12:54Z")
Cuisines from tropical cultures do tend to be spicier. I think it’s to mask slightly-spoiled food, rather than preventing the spoilage. Or possibly both? ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Bravo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_bravo/32/493_2.png) [@Johnny\_Bravo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Bravo)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2013, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-the-spices-used-in-indian-curries-retard-food-spoliage/651254/4 "2013-02-24T16:16:14Z")
At least one article suggests that your [friend is right.](http://webpub.allegheny.edu/employee/r/rmumme/FS101/ResearchPapers/VictorPilewski.html) “Sherman and Billing (1998) conducted a study analyzing the use of 43 spices in 36 countries worldwide. A total of 4,578 meat-based recipes from 93 traditional cookbooks were involved in this study. The study was restricted to meat-based recipes because meat is more likely to spoil and cause food poisoning than plant products. The spices’ inhibitory effects were tested on 30 species of bacteria. Every spice included in Sherman and Billing’s study displayed inhibitory properties on at least one species of bacteria. Eighty percent of the spices tested inhibited 50 percent of the bacteria, and four spices, garlic, onion, allspice, and oregano, inhibited the growth of every species of bacteria in this experiment.” and “A study by De, De, and Banerjee (1999) tested the antimicrobial effects of 35 Indian spices on a gram-positive organism, a gram-negative organism, and yeast. The 35 spices where individually mixed into molten agar media at three concentrations. The organisms were then added to the solidified media and their growth was compared with a control group. The results indicated that 20 of the spices had antimicrobial properties. Of the 20 spices with antimicrobial properties, six spices had both antibacterial and antifungal properties.” ---
**Author:** ![tomcar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7993a0/32.png) [@tomcar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomcar)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2013, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-the-spices-used-in-indian-curries-retard-food-spoliage/651254/5 "2013-02-24T17:38:59Z")
Turmeric is excellent to put on cuts and wounds. That must indicate antibacterial properties. Ginger is in the same family. Both are used heavily in Indian food. ---
**Author:** ![bldysabba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ecccb3/32.png) [@bldysabba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bldysabba)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2013, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-the-spices-used-in-indian-curries-retard-food-spoliage/651254/6 "2013-02-24T17:41:36Z")
Anecdotal evidence from a lifetime of eating Indian food would suggest that any protection afforded by spices from food spoilage (in typically warm Indian conditions) does not last beyond 12-18 hours at the most. Refrigeration provides significantly more protection. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2013, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-the-spices-used-in-indian-curries-retard-food-spoliage/651254/7 "2013-02-24T17:45:57Z")
Spices and the spice trade came about almost entirely to cover the taste of rotting meat. Most implications that spices preserve food (moreso than chilling or dehydration, which often goes along with spice usage, historically) are somewhere between myth and a polite euphemism for the real purpose. ---
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2013, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-the-spices-used-in-indian-curries-retard-food-spoliage/651254/8 "2013-02-25T03:58:18Z")
I’m not convinced its about the taste of rotting meat. Why? Well, India is not exactly known as a carnivore’s paradise. While meat consumption varies by region and individual, I still don’t think it’s enough to build an entire cuisine around. Indeed, most tropical areas, especially away from the coast, are functionally vegetarian most of the time, and yet these are the regions that tend to have spicier foods. Furthermore, rotten meat doesn’t really work with how tropical areas consume meat. Chicken, for example, would typically be live until dinner time. Nobody is going to have rotten chicken. Larger animals are probably not an everyday thing, unless an urban are is large enough to support a daily or weekly slaughter. Meat from that would generally be consumed the same day. It’s in colder climate, where large stores of food must be prepared for the winter, that food starts tasting noticeably rotten at points of the year. ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2013, 4:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-the-spices-used-in-indian-curries-retard-food-spoliage/651254/9 "2013-02-25T04:41:15Z")
Hops are used in beer as a long-term preservative, but I wouldn’t call them spicy. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2013, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-the-spices-used-in-indian-curries-retard-food-spoliage/651254/10 "2013-02-25T15:27:56Z")
The reason the spice trade existed was because the spices of India and Indonesia were highly prized in Europe - to help conceal the taste of rotten meat. Whether that was ever the case within India, I don’t know - but I’d suspect that use of the readily available spices goes beyond, and before, religious avoidance of meat, and probably began for much the same reasons. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2013, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-the-spices-used-in-indian-curries-retard-food-spoliage/651254/11 "2013-02-25T16:08:57Z")
> [@NitroPress](#): > > The reason the spice trade existed was because the spices of India and Indonesia were highly prized in Europe - to help conceal the taste of rotten meat. That’s the story I’ve been fed, too, but, so far as I could tell, this is largely a myth. There’s a lot on the net about this, but [this Snopes thread](http://msgboard.snopes.com/message/ultimatebb.php?/ubb/get_topic/f/102/t/000109/p/1.html) has links to some actual scholarship on the subject. > [@](#): > > But in the overwhelming amount of time I’ve been gone from this board, I found a transcript of a presentation that pretty definitively debunks the ridiculous theory (widely supported by modern cooks like the Frugal Gourmet) that medieval cooks used huge amounts of spices in order to cover the flavor of spoiled meat, since they didn’t have refrigeration. The problem is, those types of spices you’re talking about were expensive to Europeans. Like you said they were “highly prized.” A family that could afford these spices probably has access to some fresh meat. Also, rotten meat is still going to get you sick, no matter how much you spice it. So I never understood that argument for using spices, either. So far as I can tell, the myth originated with a book by J. C. Drummond, _The Englishman’s Food: Five Centuries of English Diet,_ which was published in 1939. I have no doubt that spices can be used to help preserve fresh meat. The idea that they were widely used to cover meat that is already rotting and make it palatable is a little tougher to swallow. ---
**Author:** ![bldysabba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ecccb3/32.png) [@bldysabba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bldysabba)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2013, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-the-spices-used-in-indian-curries-retard-food-spoliage/651254/12 "2013-02-25T17:12:57Z")
> [@NitroPress](#): > > The reason the spice trade existed was because the spices of India and Indonesia were highly prized in Europe - to help conceal the taste of rotten meat. Whether that was ever the case within India, I don’t know - but I’d suspect that use of the readily available spices goes beyond, and before, religious avoidance of meat, and probably began for much the same reasons. I’m also inclined to disbelieve the theory that spice was highly prized because it helped conceal the taste of rotten meat. I’ve had the misfortune to eat slightly spoilt, but highly spicy meat preparations. There is no concealing the bad taste. Also, India was never a large meat eating area that suddenly stopped eating meat because it found religion. I’d say the religion evolved to reflect economics that rendered it unprofitable to eat meat. ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2013, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-the-spices-used-in-indian-curries-retard-food-spoliage/651254/13 "2013-02-25T17:24:47Z")
I think Europeans like highly spiced food because most of their food was very bland. Remember, this was before green peppers, squash, potatoes and corn/ maize came from the New World. I have tasted medieval recipes for meat pies-the cooks liked lots of cloves, ginger, pepper, etc. in their meat dishes. Most people today would not like such a level of spices-simply because there are lot more flavors in food available to us today. ---
**Author:** ![anu-la1979](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/47e85d/32.png) [@anu-la1979](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/anu-la1979)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2013, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-the-spices-used-in-indian-curries-retard-food-spoliage/651254/14 "2013-02-25T17:42:27Z")
My parents grew up in a tropical Southern Indian state and in a pescatarian culture. I’ve been to my grandmother’s farm plenty of times before they got indoor plumbing and electricity. They firmly believe it, and my grandmother/aunts routinely left fish curries out overnight. To this day my mom cooks the chicken curry the night before and just leaves it on the stove all night. It drives my brother-in-law absolutely nuts. Some things I observed about how they treated food before refrigeration: a) They rarely make more food than will need to be kept out for more than 20 hours anyway b) In addition to the commonly known turmeric and ginger and garlic, there are all sorts of spices down south like the dried peels of the mangosteen fruit that they believe have preservative properties c) Aside from not refrigerating, they were also really careful to reheat the curries to boiling every 10 hours or so on the gas flame. They also did a lot of salting-chiliing as a preservative technique. Some of my least favourite memories of Goa are being put out on the terrace with a large palm frond to stave crows off of the drying salted chili fish. Crow duty…always pawned off on the visiting American cousins. Just bear in mind that even to this day, they really don’t have a supermarket culture of storing lots of food for long periods of time. I just went back recently and my mother-in-law barely keeps fruits, vegetables or leftovers in the teeny tiny refrigerator. It’s mostly for juices and their milk. Refrigeration space is even more of a premium in crowded cities like Bombay. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2013, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-the-spices-used-in-indian-curries-retard-food-spoliage/651254/15 "2013-02-25T17:56:39Z")
> [@anu-la1979](#): > > To this day my mom cooks the chicken curry the night before and just leaves it on the stove all night. It drives my brother-in-law absolutely nuts. Yeah, my mother and father would do this, too, even though my parents are Eastern European and spicing doesn’t get much fancier than salt, pepper, and possibly caraway seed, marjoram, or allspice. They had this belief that putting hot stew in a cold fridge was bad for the fridge (which is probably rooted in something that was true once upon a time). So, we’d eat stews that’s be left out overnight at room temperature and either then put them in the fridge, or reheat them for an early dinner (dinners were typically around 4-5 p.m. on weekdays for us, 1-3 p.m. on weekends.) They don’t seem to do it anymore, though. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2013, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-the-spices-used-in-indian-curries-retard-food-spoliage/651254/16 "2013-02-25T18:33:00Z")
> [@pulykamell](#): > > That’s the story I’ve been fed, too, but, so far as I could tell, this is largely a myth. There’s a lot on the net about this, but [this Snopes thread](http://msgboard.snopes.com/message/ultimatebb.php?/ubb/get_topic/f/102/t/000109/p/1.html) has links to some actual scholarship on the subject. Our genial host seems to [think it’s correct](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/393/how-did-salt-and-pepper-become-the-standard-table-spices), at least in part. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Devil\_s\_Grandmother](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/74df32/32.png) [@The\_Devil\_s\_Grandmother](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Devil_s_Grandmother)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2013, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-the-spices-used-in-indian-curries-retard-food-spoliage/651254/17 "2013-02-25T19:15:57Z")
> [@NitroPress](#): > > Spices and the spice trade came about almost entirely to cover the taste of rotting meat. Most implications that spices preserve food (moreso than chilling or dehydration, which often goes along with spice usage, historically) are somewhere between myth and a polite euphemism for the real purpose. Why would anyone use incredibly expensive, hard-to-get spices to cover the taste of cheap and locally sourced meat? Why, in the days before refrigeration, wouldn’t you keep your chicken or goat alive until you eat it? Eat what you can and salt/smoke/freeze in a snowdrift the rest. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2013, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-the-spices-used-in-indian-curries-retard-food-spoliage/651254/18 "2013-02-25T19:29:15Z")
> [@NitroPress](#): > > Our genial host seems to [think it’s correct](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/393/how-did-salt-and-pepper-become-the-standard-table-spices), at least in part. The quote is: > [@](#): > > Pepper, being pungent, became particularly popular, since it could be used to disguise the taste of semirotten meat, a commodity then in abundant supply. I’d like to see a source from Cecil about that. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2013, 7:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-the-spices-used-in-indian-curries-retard-food-spoliage/651254/19 "2013-02-25T19:33:14Z")
> [@The\_Devil\_s\_Grandmother](#): > > Why would anyone use incredibly expensive, hard-to-get spices to cover the taste of cheap and locally sourced meat? Why, in the days before refrigeration, wouldn’t you keep your chicken or goat alive until you eat it? Eat what you can and salt/smoke/freeze in a snowdrift the rest. Understand that I’m not making the argument in its own right; it’s what I’ve read in a number of places, Cecil’s column included. If it’s been debunked, fine. In this case, though, I think you are underestimating the cost and availability of meat in the pre-refrigeration era, especially on a village level, and especially in the non-winter months. Slaughtering a large animal means there is going to be days’ worth of meat to manage, and barring diligent drying, smoking, snowbanking etc. a lot of it is going to get gamy before it gets et. The rise of spices seems to have arisen as much for their value in masking these tastes as for any inherent reason or novelty - _seems_. ---
**Author:** ![FlyingRat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/59ef9b/32.png) [@FlyingRat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FlyingRat)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2013, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-the-spices-used-in-indian-curries-retard-food-spoliage/651254/20 "2013-02-25T19:47:47Z")
> [@NitroPress](#): > > Our genial host seems to [think it’s correct](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/393/how-did-salt-and-pepper-become-the-standard-table-spices), at least in part. There’s a [thread from a couple years ago](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=582741) in which this was discussed more fully (and in which **aruvqan** provides some interesting cites from period cookery books). There’s also [a much more in-depth discussion on Stephan’s Florilegium](http://www.florilegium.org/files/FOOD/rotten-meat-msg.html) (a Society for Creative Anachronism site) about where this idea might have originated. An answer seems to have come from earlier English ideas about the “proper” spicing/preparation of food, and an attempt to explain why medieval recipes (many of which do tend to use a plethora of spices, in ways more evocative of South Asian cuisine) are the way they are. From a 1780 edition of _Forme of Cury_, an early English cookbook: [QUOTE=Samuel Pegge, 1780] Many of them are so highly seasoned, are such strange and heterogeneous compositions, meer olios and gallimawfreys, that they seem removed as far as possible from the intention of contributing to health; indeed the messes are so redundant and complex, that in regard to herbs, in No. 6, no less than ten are used, where we should now be content with two or three: and so the sallad, No. 76, consists of no less than 14 ingredients. (Forme of Cury, 1780 edition) [/QUOTE] If you note that 1) medieval/early modern Europeans were eating “highly” and “strangely” seasoned stews, not roasts, and 2) you lack information on the mechanics of food preservation and distribution at the time, you might come to the wrong conclusion. In reality, the economics don’t add up. (Also in reality, the food is damn yummy). [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/do-the-spices-used-in-indian-curries-retard-food-spoliage/651254.md?page=2)