We love a good travelogue show where you get to see visit an interesting place, learn about the food, the people, the history and the culture. Sometimes presenters have a particular interest. For example, Michael Portillo has a thing for trains and we are there for it. There's Simon Reeves who has a particular focus on the environment, and others! If I had to pick a favourite host though, there is only one. Joanne Lumley!
Joanna Lumley was originally known as a model and actress starring in shows like The New Avengers, Absolutely Fabulous and most recently Amandaland but she started doing travel shows back in the late 1990s. I first started watching her travel adventures around 10 years ago but since then I have watched quite a few of her TV series including
Joanna Lumley's Trans-Siberian Adventure
Joanna Lumley's Japan
Joanna Lumley's India
Joanna & Jennifer: Absolutely Champers
Joanna Lumley's Silk Road Adventure
Joanna Lumley's Hidden Caribbean: Havana to Haiti
Joanna Lumley's Unseen Adventures
Joanna Lumley's Great Cities of the World
Joanna Lumley's Spice Trail Adventure
I have seen that there is a new adventure coming called Joanna Lumley’s Danube. It's pretty amazing that she is still doing these shows given that she is now nearly 80 years old.
Part of the reason why I love her shows is that she comes across as genuinely respectful of the beliefs and culture of the places that she visits, of the people she meets. She is also game for a lot of activities, loves vegetarian food and she is funny. We were lucky enough to see her live when she was in Australia last year as well and I love listening to her speak.
If I had to pick a favourite show from the list above it is probably the one where she visited Japan. However, if I am channel surfing and I come across any of her shows then I will watch it. Today, though, I wanted to talk about the last one I watched deliberately which was the Spice Trail Adventure
The spice trade shaped the world, over hundreds of years from the ancient traders and then especially once Europeans got involved, and heralded the start of colonisation, caused wars, and changed the way that we eat.
In the first episode, she visits Indonesia, formerly known as the Dutch East Indies, and specifically visits the Banda Islands which was originally the only place in the world where nutmeg was grown. The Dutch were so eager to control the spice trade in this area of the world that they did a trade with the British trading the island of New Amsterdam for the island of Run which is in the Banda Islands. Of course, New Amsterdam became New York, the city that never sleeps
An interesting thing about nutmeg is that the spice mace comes from the same fruit. Nutmeg is the seed and mace is a lacy outer membrane. Whilst nutmeg is something that we always have in the cupboard, mace is something a bit more unusual.
Next stop is India, which is a country that Lumley loves, mainly because she was born there when her father was stationed there. She actually had a pretty interesting childhood. The focus in India is on black pepper
From there, we travel to Madagscar where the focus in on vanilla. Did you know that vanilla is actually grown on a vine. Vanilla was native to Mexico and whilst it thrives in Madagascar and the country is known for growing some of the best quality vanilla in the world. One of the things I learned from this program is that there is no natural way for the plant to pollinate and so this all has to be done by hand. It was interesting to see the vanilla traders as well.
The final stops on this tour are Zanzibar and Jordan. In Zanzibar she is excited to get to sail in a dhow and also talks about the slave trade and more. Jordan is important because it formed an important stop on the ancient spice road when the spices were being transported from their origins to market. There was an odd moment in this where she visits The Treasury in the dark. It does mean that she was there as the sun rose, but the part leading up to that where she was wandering around with a torch was a bit odd.
Whilst all the spice related conversations are very interesting, it is sobering to reflect on the fact that for all the riches and the empires that were build on the back of the trade, the local people don't appear to have prospered at all, even now.
When we were in Sri Lanka we visited a spice garden where they grew many different spices including nutmeg, mace, pepper and vanilla and so much more. We also learned about many of the medicinal properties of spices.
And ow I will wait for the Danube show! I know I will lvoe it!
Saturday - Out for dinner
Sunday - Massaman curry pizza
Monday - Fried Chicken, mash broccoli and gravy
Tuesday - Chicken, broccoli pasta bake
Wednesday - Zucchini, Parmesan and tomato risotto
Thursday - Beef enchiladas
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