Tl;Dr: Spice was a status symbol but colonialism made it more widely available so aristocrats started looking down on it. Got obsessed with gravies instead since it didn’t “defile” the original flavor of ingredients. This eventually disseminated throughout European culture, blandifying everything. Also meat is manly (lmao).
https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2015/03/26/394339284/how-snobbery-helped-take-the-spice-out-of-european-cooking
Tl;Dr: Spice was a status symbol but colonialism made it more widely available so aristocrats started looking down on it. Got obsessed with gravies instead since it didn’t “defile” the original flavor of ingredients. This eventually disseminated throughout European culture, blandifying everything. Also meat is manly (lmao).
Interesting!