News/Commentary

‘OMG enough already!’ WaPo reports on ‘corporate genocide’ behind pumpkin spice

October 9, 2023 | | Print Article

Fall is in the air and Halloween is fast approaching, which means pretty much everything you can think of is being infused with the smell and taste of pumpkin pie.

But before you sip that latte or light that candle, know this: The spices that bring that whiff of seasonal joy are “fraught with colonizer histories.”

Yes, pumpkin spice is racist, The Washington Post reports… just like everything else.

WaPo reporter Maham Javaid, who grew up in Karachi, Pakistan, paints a pretty horrifying picture of pumpkin spice’s origin story.

“The invaders struck the island from three sides simultaneously,” she began. “The Dutch fleet of 1,655 soldiers and sailors and more than a dozen wooden ships landed at the Banda Islands, an archipelago located in modern-day Indonesia, in 1621. It was the most powerful military campaign the Dutch East India Company had sent to Asia thus far.”

“After a swift Bandanese surrender, the victors rounded up local leaders. They signed treaties that turned the Bandanese into Dutch subjects, then tortured them for confessions revealing alleged plots to attack the Dutch,” she continues. “Thousands were killed, others enslaved, and many who fled to the mountains were starved out.”

One must wonder if Mondelēz International, makers of Oreo cookies, are aware that their pumpkin spice release of the popular cookie has its roots in torture.

ADVERTISEMENT


Mondelēz takes its Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) score pretty seriously. And in September 2020, the company announced “a multi-year commitment focused on elevating our existing D&I [Diversity & Inclusion] initiatives to make meaningful impacts in the area of racial equity.”

Would pumpkin spice Oreos be gracing supermarket shelves if the company realized its sought-after flavor represents the “first instance of corporate genocide”?

Because, according to historian and University of Texas at Austin professor Adam Clulow, that’s the ugly truth behind the pumpkin spice craze.

“The population of around 15,000 Bandanese was decimated to just a few hundred in a few months,” Clulow told The Washington Post. “The Dutch company was later accused of carrying out what some describe as the first instance of corporate genocide. And it was all for nutmeg.”

Nutmeg, Javaid notes, is “one of three key spices in the blend known as pumpkin spice.”

ADVERTISEMENT

“Some spices are part of a natural course of trade,” food historian Sarah Wassberg Johnson said. “It just happens that the main spices in pumpkin spice are fraught with colonizer histories.”

And pumpkin spice brings in the big bucks.

“Pumpkin spice products are firmly established as an economic juggernaut today,” Javaid reports. “Sales of pumpkin spice products (not including those at restaurants and coffee shops) totaled more than $802 million in the year ending July 2023, according to NielsenIQ data.”

On X, however, few seem as horrified as WaPo appears to be.

“OMG enough already, @washingtonpost,” wrote one user. “Now I’m off to enjoy my apple pie that has nutmeg in it.”

ADVERTISEMENT

“And then they came for pumpkin spice,” Knox County, Tenn., Mayor Glenn Jacobs said. “Is there just one dadgum thing smug liberal elitists won’t try to ruin with their ‘sordid history of ________’ nonsense?”

“Burn your cotton. Flush your sugar,” exclaimed another user. “Poor little nutmeg … has to go too. Turns out EVERYTHING is racist.”

ADVERTISEMENT
Melissa Fine
Latest posts by Melissa Fine (see all)

Comment

We have no tolerance for comments containing violence, racism, profanity, vulgarity, doxing, or discourteous behavior. If a comment is spam, instead of replying to it please click the ∨ icon below and to the right of that comment. Thank you for partnering with us to maintain fruitful conversation.

Latest Articles