The Disturbing Colonial History

of Pumpkin Spice

Pumpkin spice is all the rage these days. The flavor has become
synonymous with fall, and for many people invokes the joy of the
changing seasons.

What most people don’t realize, though, is that there’s a dark colonial
past behind this seemingly modern, carefree flavor.

It includes slavery, corruption, and genocide. You may never look at a

pumpkin spice coffee the same way again.

The Origins of Pumpkin Spice

The concept of “pumpkin spice” as a flavor dates back to 1934.

Companies were beginning to sell canned pumpkin purée, and spice

giant McCormick decided to get in on the action by releasing a spice
blend specifically for use in pumpkin pie.
The Disturbing Colonial History
of Pumpkin Spice
Really, though, the origins of what we call “pumpkin spice” go back
way further.

Pumpkin spice is typically a blend of nutmeg, cinnamon, and cloves.

The first known mention of the blend dates to The Compleat Cook, a
1671 English cookbook that likely inspired America’s early pumpkin
recipes. In its recipes for “Pompkin pie,” the book calls for “Cinamon
Nutmeg, Pepper, and six Cloves” to season the pie.

Where did the book’s English author get the idea for that warm,
autumnal blend? The idea probably comes from speculaas, a Dutch
spice blend that dates to even earlier in the 17th century.

But even that isn’t the true origin of the blend. The idea of combining
piquant spices into a warming blend isn’t American, English, or
Dutch–it’s Southeast Asian.

In India, people have used the spice blend karha–which typically

includes nutmeg, cloves, ginger, and cardamom–to flavor masala chai
tea since antiquity.

So how did this Southeast Asian spice combo end up in Holland–and

ultimately in your 21st-century coffee drink?
The Disturbing Colonial History
of Pumpkin Spice
It was stolen and brought there by one of the most violent and corrupt
colonial entities in history: The Dutch East India Company.

Anything for Spices

The Dutch East India Company was established in 1602 in Holland for
one purpose: to exploit the Asian spice trade…