It puzzled me when I was at Primary School to hear that there was a huge business in spices. We heard about the Dutch and British East India Companies and of Spice Trade routes by land across continents and by sea.
When I looked in our poorly stocked food cabinet at home in the 1940s, I could see pepper, nutmeg, curry and mustard, but the quantity appeared to be so small compared with the sugar, flour, jams, cereals and canned foods. Yet there seemed to be a booming international trade in spices.
I looked up Wikipedia last week and found
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spice_trade -
"This trade – driving the world economy from the end of the Middle Ages well into the modern times – [5] ushered in an age of European domination in the East.[6] Channels, such as the Bay of Bengal, served as bridges for cultural and commercial exchanges between diverse cultures[4] as nations struggled to gain control of the trade along the many spice routes."
And incidentally found this -
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_India_Company - "By 1803, at the height of its rule in India, the British East India company had a private army of about 260,000—twice the size of the British Army.[5] The company eventually came to rule large areas of India with its private armies, exercising military power and assuming administrative functions."
A private company had an army of 260,000 personnel at one time! They certainly took trade with the East seriously.
Apart from that little bit of trivia, the explanation for the huge trade in spices and herbs may have something to do with imagined or real health benefits, but the general consensus at my young age was that at a time when there was no refrigeration, most meats were a bit 'on the turn' after a day or two. Therefore it was almost necessary to flavour any meat dishes with spices to mask the bad taste. That made sense to me.
People would not have had access to ice chests till well into the 19th century.