Sorry, but I can't let this one stand uncontested ...
First of all, this is not a pop at you. This claim appears time and time again, but is completely wrong, and I find it fascinating. I'm writing this in the hope that others might find it fascinating too.
I've lived for extended periods in different places round the world, have a background in history, and a great interest in food.
It is a myth that spices were/are used to hide the unpleasantness of degraded food in a hot humid climate.
The places that use spices in abundance do so for a variety of reasons, among them:
- they grow locally and are readily and cheaply available, or:
- they don't grow locally, and are/were a prestige item that allowed one to flaunt one's wealth, and/or:
- people believed or still believe that certain foods have "heating" or "cooling" properties and use spices to help balance this out. This goes all the way back to ancient Greek medical theories (google humoral medicine if you're interested), was a widespread belief throughout Europe for centuries and did influenceEuropean eating habits, and is still a common belief in the daily eating and cooking practices of large chunks of the world (India and China among others, although which foods to thought be heating and cooling are not always consistent from one country to the next).
In India, for example, people routinely do things like soak whole mangoes in water before eating them to "reduce their heatiness".
In China I have been scolded by random strangers for eating peanuts or toast (both allegedly "heating") when it looked to them that I had a cold (actually nose streaming in reaction to pollution...).
What I'm getting at is that the average person routinely believes all this stuff and chooses and seasons their food accordingly, often by using spices.
In countries where it is hot and humid, food is not given a chance to degrade, or the "degrading" is done in a controlled manner.
I lived in China back before pretty much anyone had a fridge at home (and those who had one didn't really trust it or really use it) and there were no supermarkets. Fish and chicken were bought at the market immediately before using, and they killed the animal for you if you didn't want to take it home and do it yourself. A lot of meats and fish were preserved by being dried, either bought that way already or people did it themselves, hanging them outside during the colder months.
In India, heat and humidity are/were used to "degrade" food in a controlled manner. The milk bought in the morning couldn't be preserved due to lack of refrigeration, but you boiled it, scooped the cream off the top and used it directly in cooking or turned it into ghee, which does not go rancid at room temperature. The remaining milk is turned into yoghurt, using room temperature heat to complete the process, or its turned into sweets or, in Rajasthan, soured deliberately in the sun to make a popular drink, etc.
In the south, where it is even more hot and humid, the weather is used to help making a huge variety of fermented dishes that are pretty much everyday food, such as dosas, idlis and so on.
In none of these places are spices needed to cover up the taste of rancid or degraded food.
Spices were highly prestigious and used liberally in European cooking in the past, including that of the UK. They were extremely expensive and pretty much the preserve of the extremely wealthy, who were using them in their food to impress and definitely not in a financial position where they needed to hide the taste of degraded or rancid food.
The cost of and demand for spices was so high, including in the UK, that there was huge European competition to gain access to the places where they were grown. However, once access had been gained, colonies had been claimed, and spices came down in price and were thus more obtainable to those who were not the super rich , their prestige value declined and "high society" started to shun their use, with the middle class following suit. There were other reasons as well for the decline in popularity of spices in Europe, including, among others, the influence of Calvinism and a distrust of spices as something that would "inflame the passions.)
The decline in the use of spices even occurred among UK colonists living in India during the Raj. At the beginning they ate food spiced in the Indian manner, but the popularity of spicing fell at the same time as its popularity declined back in the UK (although obviously there were exceptions and food was often still more spiced than "back home". )
This move away from spices did not happen in the same way in other parts of the world, which is why, for example, Morocco still cooks with a lot of spices whereas Spain now cooks with a lot less than it used to.
On a final note, the earlier more extensive use of spices in European cooking still remains apparent in their liberal use in festive food, which tends to change much more slowly than everyday food.
All the cinnamon, ginger, etc. in Christmas foods such as Christmas cake, gingerbread, Stollen, Pfeffernüsse, etc. etc. serve as a sort of cultural legacy pointing at their past use and former prestige.
Finally, more on topic:
Perhaps slightly controversial, but as a non UK person who lived there several years and also lived for several years in Japan, I always found it strange the extent to which Japanese food is praised when it truly has a quite limited range of flavors and ingredients. Which is not surprising, as traditionally the country wss very poor and most foods were scarce. But people rave in appreciation about Japanese food.
And at the same time they slate English food for having a quite limited range of flavors and ingredients....