René Descartes at the table

In the Republic of the Seven United Provinces, where Descartes lived for over twenty years, the sober bourgeois structured his day around three moments: a breakfast and supper built on rye bread, cheese, and fish, and at the centre, the midday middagmaal dominated by a single large stew (potspijs/hutspot) served from a communal terrine. Sweets (taarten) and spiced drinks punctuated feast days or bodily care. Everything was marked by Calvinist moderation and the spices that the VOC fleets poured onto Amsterdam's markets.

Grated over the vegetable pot, in apple tart as well as in hot drinks, nutmeg—wrested from the Banda Islands by the Dutch East India Company—is THE aromatic signature of the Dutch Golden Age. It speaks both of Amsterdam's mercantile wealth and the Dutch taste for a discreet spiced warmth, perfect for a mind that aspired to sobriety.