During the 17th century, international trade dominated Dutch life (nearly 1 million people in total sailed on the Dutch East Indies fleet - more than all the other European countries combined), and the city of Amsterdam was at the centre of it. All the enormous wealth generated during this Golden Age was due, at least in part, to the Dutch domination of the spice trade.  

The Dutch were relative latecomers to the spice business but they brought efficiency and ruthlessness and ended up monopolising large parts of the market. Back home, shipbuilding, transportation, fishing and other industries were all important but it was spices and the huge profits they generated that had the greatest effect on the country's prosperity.

Unlike the Spanish, Portuguese and Venetians who were all heavily involved at the time, the Dutch had no state authority directing the trade and not much interest in spreading religion or national influence. They were motivated solely by profit and the expeditions were funded privately, not by government. It was this pooling of private resources in return for shares in the new Dutch East India company (the VOC) that became the basis for the modern corporation, and meant that many private individuals became immensely wealthy off the back of the spice trade.

The VOC itself traded for nearly 200 years paying often spectacular but ultimately unaffordable dividends every year. Amsterdam has many fine canal-side mansions that were built by the directors  and investors who profited from the VOC but as in London today, there isn't much else left to show the origins of the city's prosperity.

Many of the old houses in Hoorn have paintings and plasterwork with illustrations of East India company ships which shows pretty clearly where all the money came from!

However, about 40 minutes away from Amsterdam is the sleepy town of Hoorn which is beautifully preserved and was dominated in the 16th and 17th Centuries by the East India trade. The attractive little harbour full of pleasure boats all looks very comfortable and prosperous now, but back then this was a place of global importance.

Hoorn was one of the 6 chambers (regional bases) of the VOC and ships sailed from here all around the world. Cape Horn at the tip of South America is named after this little town but its most significant (and notorious) contribution to world history is its most famous son - Jan Pieterszoon Coen.  

Jan Coen was the governor general of the East India company from 1618 to 1629 and it was under his leadership that the VOC made the most money, built the city of Batavia (modern day Jakarta), and cemented their monopoly of the spice trade in the East Indies.

 

In Jan Coen's time the only place in the world where cloves, nutmeg and mace grew was on a handful of incredibly remote, tiny islands in what's now Indonesia (the Moluccas or spice islands).

Jan Coen realised this meant it was possible for the Dutch to gain a complete monopoly in the supply of nutmeg, mace and cloves (pepper, ginger, cinnamon and other spices all grew in several areas and it was impossible to monopolise these ingredients in the same way).  When the local leaders refused his demands and wanted to carry on trading with the Arabs, Chinese and other Europeans as they had done for centuries you might say he wasn't too impressed.

 

 

 

He immediately ordered the extermination of all the islanders (estimates are that only around 1000 from an original population of 15000 remained). He then shipped in workers from other parts of Asia and Dutchmen to run plantations - the 'gardeners' as they  became known who would be more amenable to his terms.

 

 

 

 

 

Even now this prominent statue in his hometown remains controversial as for many Indonesians he represents a genocide that's been somewhat written out of Dutch history. He's also the reason why in the Banda islands nowadays there's virtually no local knowledge of using these ingredients in the local cooking - nearly all those who grew up cooking with them were killed or expatriated and the current population were only ever allowed to grow the spices for export, not for their own use.

  

 

In the end this ruthless focus on a monopoly of the spice trade backfired as the English East India company, (which was fought off by the Dutch in Indonesia), ended up making more money (lower profit margins but much higher volumes) by trading other commodities such as tea and cotton from around Asia.

On top of this, clove and nutmeg plants were smuggled out of the Dutch controlled spice islands and successfully grown in other colonies (most significantly cloves in Zanzibar and nutmeg in Grenada). Food fashions also changed and the extravagant use of spices in Europe (particularly in savoury cooking) disappeared and the cooking became plainer. Amsterdam, Hoorn and the other towns that were built from the profits of the East Indies trade were left behind as the focus of world trade shifted to London.  

Modern Dutch food is pretty plain but there are a few historic foods left that are still popular and show how spices were used in sometimes surprisingly large quantities (particularly the cloves, mace and nutmeg that the Dutch were so obsessed with)

 

Nagelkaasor Clove Cheese - known as 'nail cheese' because the whole cloves look like little nails. This Gouda type cheese is studded with whole cloves and sometimes cumin seeds as well. It's then matured for up to 36 months until the cheese is fairly dry. The flavour of cloves is incredibly strong by modern standards and even for a spice fan it's a bit of an acquired taste as biting on whole raw cloves in every mouthful is pretty unfamiliar, but the flavour of the spice really scents every bite. Maybe it shows people really did love the strong taste of these ingredients back in the 17th Century?

 

 

 

 

Ossenworstis a finely minced raw beef sausage very heavily seasoned with mace, nutmeg, cloves and pepper. Lots of European charcuterie is seasoned with a similar mix (the French have a blend called quatre epices which is used in small amounts for all kinds of sausages and charcuterie) but Dutch ossenworstis unusual in the sheer quantity of spices used to season it giving a really pungent but delicious taste that's a real flavour of history.      

 

 

 

If you're interested in reading more about the history of the spice trade in Europe, there's a really interesting book by Michael krondl which you can find here.