‘Fruit from the Sands’ explores the Silk Road origins of apples, tea and more
A new book explains how many popular foods went global
By Bruce Bower
Fruit from the Sands
Robert N. Spengler III
Univ. of California, $34.95
Many popular foods can be traced back to trade caravans and herding groups that turned Central Asia into a hub of globalization several thousand years ago. In Fruit from the Sands, archaeobotanist Robert Spengler, who studies how people used plants in the past, surveys evidence suggesting that the ancient Silk Road was the conduit for dispersing much of what is now munched and sipped. Edibles with a Silk Road pedigree include almonds, apples, grapes, peaches, rice and wheat.
To understand how this food distribution process worked, readers must first discard romantic notions about the Silk Road, Spengler explains. The name is misleading: The Silk Road wasn’t a road and didn’t primarily transport silk. Instead, archaeological evidence indicates that the Silk Road encompassed a network of trade routes radiating out from Central Asia that connected China to the Mediterranean. Silk Road exchanges of commodities and cultural practices, such as metalworking and horseback riding, began about 5,000 years ago.
Grains were among the most important products to travel those ancient routes. Excavations led by Spengler of two herders’ camps in Kazakhstan indicate that grain movements began more than 4,000 years ago. Graves at those sites contain seeds of both wheat and broomcorn millet (SN: 5/3/14, p. 15). Grain crops carried back and forth on the Silk Road transformed societies, Spengler argues. Wheat from the Fertile Crescent in Southwest Asia spread into China along the foothills of Central Asian mountains, plant remains from an increasing number of sites suggest. The grain put a new spin on rice-based East Asian cuisine, adding noodles, dumplings and steamed buns made from wheat flour to the menu. Wheat became the winter crop of Chinese dynasties starting about 2,000 years ago.