Great article, thanks for sharing.

"Elites decided they were vulgar, and during the reign of France’s Louis XIV, court chefs banned sugar and spice from all meals except for desserts."

And it was right in HN a while back that someone was poopooing non-European cuisine's use of spices as "a means to cover up subpar ingredients". Turns out that at least in Europe it had nothing to do with subpar ingredients.

both may be true, and seasoning preferences are a boring topic, and not the point of the article.