About
“By convention sweet and by convention bitter, by convention hot, by convention cold, by convention color; but in reality atoms and void.”
― Democritus
The Name
Aromatica is the singular feminine or plural neuter nominative form of arōmāticus (a, um, adj.), meaning “composed of spice, aromatic, fragrant” ( Citation: Lewis & Short, 1879 Lewis, C. & Short, C. (1879). A Latin dictionary: Founded on Andrews’ edition of Freund’s Latin dictionary, revised, enlarged, and in great part rewritten. Clarendon Press. ) , cf. Ancient Greek ἀρωματικός arōmatikós (adj.) ‘aromatic’, and the etymon ἄρωμα árōma (n.) “aromatic herb or spice” ( Citation: Liddell & Scott, 1940 Liddell, H. & Scott, R. (1940). A Greek-English lexicon: Revised and augmented throughout (9). Clarendon Press. ) .
The term therefore refers to any substance of fragrance, focusing on spices, but also includes incense, medicinal herbs, aromatic woods, oils and perfume, and other exotica1 with special olfactory and gustatory qualities.
The Logo
The logo of Aromatica depicts the Borobodur ship, an 8th to 9th-century wooden double outrigger Javanese ship carved on a wall relief of the Borobodur temple (ꦧꦫꦧꦸꦝꦸꦂ). The ship here is depicted as a symbol of the maritime trade routes across the Indian Ocean region, which connected the ancient world and allowed the spread of spices and other aromatics.
The Data
In what follows, you can find the main resources that were used while building the database, and the rationale behind the selections.
A Master List of All Spices?
The first step was to create a list of spices that are relatively well-known, using information gathered by professionals from various fields. The second step was to collate the data on these materials, and morph it into a unified database to faciliate further enquiries. In the later stages of researching specific items, new and less common substances would reveal themselves, and their addition will help to reach the ultimate goal of a comprehensive list of spices.
Encyclopedias can be a great starting point to kick off research in any topic, and the Encyclopaedia Britannica does have a non-exhaustive list of herbs and spices assembled by Melissa Petruzzello ( Citation: 2021 Petruzzello, M. (2021). List of herbs and spices. Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/topic/list-of-herbs-and-spices-2024392 ) . I consider three academic fields crucial for research into the spice domain: botany, history, and gastronomy. Regarding the realm of plants, I relied on the book of South African botanist Ben-Erik van Wyk ( Citation: 2014 Wyk, B. (2014). Culinary herbs and spices of the world. University of Chicago Press, joint publication with the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. ) . For a cultural and historical account, I turned towards the book of English historian and linguist Andrew Dalby ( Citation: 2000 Dalby, A. (2000). Dangerous tastes: the story of spices. University of California Press. ) . Finally, for a perspective from the culinary arts I used the book of Tony Hill ( Citation: 2004 Hill, T. (2004). The contemporary encyclopedia of herbs and spices: Seasonings for the global kitchen. J. Wiley. ) , a spice merchant from Seattle.
Table 1. The main resources used for the spice list, and the number of items found in each.
| Source | Discipline | Number of items |
|---|---|---|
| Petruzzello ( Citation: 2021 Petruzzello, M. (2021). List of herbs and spices. Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/topic/list-of-herbs-and-spices-2024392 ) | Reference | 70 |
| Hill ( Citation: 2004 Hill, T. (2004). The contemporary encyclopedia of herbs and spices: Seasonings for the global kitchen. J. Wiley. ) | Gastronomy | 127 |
| Dalby ( Citation: 2000 Dalby, A. (2000). Dangerous tastes: the story of spices. University of California Press. ) | History | 183 |
| van Wyk ( Citation: 2014 Wyk, B. (2014). Culinary herbs and spices of the world. University of Chicago Press, joint publication with the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. ) | Botany | 667 |
The main challenge of combining different spice datasets is that the basis of comparison is not always straightforward. Depending on scientific discipline, sources identify spices either by the binomial name of the species, common names, or even some general culinary/medicinal functions and uses. Binomial names are the safe way to go when we talk about the plants, but differentiating certain spices that might or might not be of the same flora can be challenging, not to mention trying to navigate historical data. Common names are almost always problematic, since many spices have many distinct names and name variations in different times, and they are often confused – especially so in multilingual settings. Moreover, the information complied by experts of a certain scientific field is vastly different in nature, focusing on botany, chemistry, history, economics, gastronomy, etc. The problematics of spice identification is due to the fact that different disciplines focus on different aspects of these fascinating subjects of study: the magnifying glass of the botanist, the zeal of the historian, and the needs of the chefs are all enormously diverse perspectives.
External datasets
Plant names backbone and maps
Plant distribution and habitat data is taken from Plants of the World Online (POWO), which uses the World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP) dataset hosted and maintained by the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew ( Citation: Govaerts, 2023 Govaerts, R. (2023). World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP). https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.34885/jdh2-dr22 ) . Geographical codes, names, and polygon data comes from the level 3 dataset (“botanical countries”) of the World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions (2nd ed.) of the International Working Group on Taxonomic Databases For Plant Sciences (TDWG).
Linguistic and geographic data on languages are from Glottolog and WALS…
Technical details
Typeface and Fonts
This website uses Noto fonts commissioned by Google and created by Monotype. Noto (no tofu) is a typeface (font family) that covers most scripts and writing systems of the world. They are hosted on Google Fonts, open source and free to use.
Maps and Plots
The interactive visualizations were made by the Plotly graphing library using Python.
Website
The website was built using the Hugo framework, a static website generator, and a modified version of the Hugo Relearn theme.
Versioning & Update History
Version0.0.6 2023-11-01 [alpha] finalizing features; testing and resolving issues; preparing for beta release
Version0.0.5 2023-10-24 [alpha] implemented Noto typeface for all scripts and fonts
Version0.0.4 2023-10-21 [alpha] added gallery and citation modules; created logo
Version0.0.3 2023-10-20 [alpha] modified theme and functionality; added placeholder content
Version0.0.2 2023-09-12 [alpha] integrated Plotly for data visualization
Version0.0.1 2023-08-01 [alpha] created website with Hugo; entered development phase
Bibliography
- Dalby (2000)
- Dalby, A. (2000). Dangerous tastes: the story of spices. University of California Press.
- Govaerts (2023)
- Govaerts, R. (2023). World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP). https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.34885/jdh2-dr22
- Hill (2004)
- Hill, T. (2004). The contemporary encyclopedia of herbs and spices: Seasonings for the global kitchen. J. Wiley.
- Lewis & Short (1879)
- Lewis, C. & Short, C. (1879). A Latin dictionary: Founded on Andrews’ edition of Freund’s Latin dictionary, revised, enlarged, and in great part rewritten. Clarendon Press.
- Liddell & Scott (1940)
- Liddell, H. & Scott, R. (1940). A Greek-English lexicon: Revised and augmented throughout (9). Clarendon Press.
- Petruzzello (2021)
- Petruzzello, M. (2021). List of herbs and spices. Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/topic/list-of-herbs-and-spices-2024392
- Wyk (2014)
- Wyk, B. (2014). Culinary herbs and spices of the world. University of Chicago Press, joint publication with the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.
objects considered interesting because they are out of the ordinary, especially because they originated in a distant foreign country ↩︎