Since food, especially meat, spoils more quickly in hot climates, Sherman and Billing predicted that the highest use of spices in the past would be in tropical regions—an idea they tested by combing through the ingredients of thousands of meat-based recipes from centuries-old cookbooks. True to their expectations, in warmer countries—notably Thailand, India, Greece, and Nigeria—all traditional dishes with meat used at least one spice and some twelve or more. Our ancestors from colder climates, in contrast, had much blander diets. For example, one-third of traditional meat-based recipes from
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