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Yes, it's a joke. Buuuut it's based on a common misconception. Spices weren't particularly rare in 1350 (depending on where in the world one might have been, of course).
Assuming we're talking about Europe here, then certain spices in the average modern-day spice rack would be strange and exotic - allspice, for instance, which comes from Central America and the Caribbean. But most would've been familiar and not *too* expensive.
Georg of Bayern-Landshut had a 105 pounds of cloves at his wedding in 1475 (admittedly over a century after 1350), and he was just a duke. You'd have to have an awful lot more cloves in your cupboard today to come close to the wealth of a 14thC emperor. https://indomedieval.medium.com/the-landshuter-hochzeit-1475-c172e0e2a9a0
Spices were valued in medieval Europe (and elsewhere in Afro-Eurasia) because they were believed to have healing properties, made food smell and taste good, were associated with courtly life (and thus functioned as status symbols), etc. But they weren't unimaginably valuable.
The most interesting thing about a 21stC spice rack to people from 14thC Europe would probably be the little plastic boxes the spices come in.
The thing is, very little of the stuff I've put on the blog is truly *new*. You can find lots of old books on spices in medieval Europe that make similar points.
For nutmeg, for example, you could take a look at Otto Warburg's "Die Muskatnuss" (1897). Warburg even has a chapter on nutmeg and mace in medieval European texts (specifically MHG Minnesang and Spruchdichtung).
The use of digitised manuscript material is really the only novelty on the blog. The combo of archivists & the internet allows us to look directly at real documentation of spices and other Asian & African things in medieval European lit.
That's cool. But most of this stuff was known before. A few of the texts had never been edited or published before but the general outline and arguments on the blog are old news. That spices were fairly common in medieval Europe should be common knowledge.
(Part of the problem is that many of the people who pointed this out in the past were botanists or specialists on Asian history, not medievalists per se. Although of course one can also find work by medievalists on the same topic.)
Cloves (etc.) were common enough in 14thC Europe that a Spanish noble could recommend feeding ground clove to sick falcons to help them poop properly. Sure, peasants didn't use them that way, but simply owning small amounts of spice wouldn't make you rich. https://indomedieval.medium.com/indonesian-commodities-in-a-fourteenth-century-spanish-falconry-manual-6d5ce110a649
Even though this kind of thing has been known for decades and decades, the idea that spices were extremely rare and therefore extremely valuable in the Middle Ages is still remarkably widespread. Hence that viral tweet, I suppose.
Coincidence: The most recent post on the blog was about names for Indonesian spices in a Czech/Latin glossary written in the 14th century - when Prague was the seat of the Holy Roman Emperor. https://indomedieval.medium.com/indonesian-commodities-in-medieval-bohemia-babd67e7e1b3
