Spicy.

A Chance Meeting with Your Senses

Chelsea Market. 75 9th Ave, New York, NY 1001 2 p.m. Saturday — August 14, 2021

The aromatic scent and visual appeal of the spice display enticed each browser in the market to stop. The sensual experience of a simple moment in time would linger. Each individual human sense was intuitively touched. It was a primal experience. Natural meetings like this are quite uncommon in life. Unnoticed. Rare. Overlooked. Meetings, not of two humans, but of total sensual experience. Sight, Touch, Hearing, Taste, Smell. Yes, and Spirit. Spirit sense.

Strangers met briefly in awe to individually experience these simple gifts of the earth. The vendor at the market was an engaging older man. His hands were worn and colorful with stains of his spices. He stood behind his wares with pride. He had samples prepared of hundreds of seasonings from across the globe. Tiny wooded spoons were readily available to experience the scent, color, taste, and texture. The auditory senses were also stirred by the grinding and crushing of spice/ herb mixtures with a mortar and pestle. The merchant was knowledgeable and predisposed to kindful sharing of information. Mindful awareness made this more than a typical walk through a NYC market day. A circus for the soul.

One normally does not think so deeply about the pungent reaction of such minuscule elements. I do. I am an odd curiosity.

Throughout time man has explored the incredible world of spices. Seafarers traveled to ancient lands in search of this gold. Columbus went to India in search of black pepper- instead found himself in America with red pepper. Much like an unplanned chance meeting. His findings were much by accident, as most discoveries of the heart are. Columbus assured his patrons Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand of Spain, if given the opportunity to sail across the Atlantic to Asia, he would return with black pepper along with other fruits and herbs from his incredible journey.

“Second only to [gold], Ferdinand and Isabella hoped for black pepper” from Columbus’s expedition, writes Richard Schweid in Hot Peppers: The Story of Cajuns and Capsicum.

As fate would have it, Columbus docked in the Caribbean. The Taino (indigenous people of the Caribbean) consumed foods and plants the Europeans had never before encountered. Columbus was mesmerized by what the people called “Axi”. He wrote of these spicy berries in 1493.

“The peppers, he wrote, were ‘more valuable than the common sort’: that is, more valuable than black pepper…riches of Asia to his patrons, Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand of Spain.” Anne Ewbank

Exchanges in new lands with trade and discovery not only created a metamorphosis in cuisines but medicine as well. Chance meetings, as Columbus //Chelsea Market decades apart, have our senses consistently evolving. The key is mindful awareness. Through a simple, quiet stroll through a market, one can discover the culture, cuisine, healing elements, nutrition, and design all on a simple, tiny plate. Each elementary experience in life can advance your cognitive process if you are aware and open to it.

Then again, maybe not. I am an odd curiosity.