Everybody knows the British went after the spices, but it was the Portuguese that significantly changed the food of the world.
Brazil didn't have coffee before the Portuguese brought it from Africa....
Most spices come from the Molluca archipelago in modern day Indonesia, not the Americas. South and south east asia have had spices long before the Portuguese got there. So did the rest of the world by the way, with Arab merchants carrying pepper, cloves, cardamom etc around, including to the Mediterranean. Your food history is off :)