When I was in Portugal, stuffing my face and losing my socks, I kept thinking back to the powerful chili*** and how its popularity began with the trade routes that shuttled between colonies of the Portuguese empire. The history of the chili pepper is one of the more interesting examples of a simple, powerful food with a complex story.
The history of chili peppers begins in Mesoamerica
Chili peppers are eaten by a quarter of the earth’s population every day, in countries all over the globe. They are perennial shrubs belonging to the Capsicum family, and were completely unknown to most of the world until Christopher Columbus made his way to the New World in 1492.
Why does eating chili peppers make your mouth burn?
Before we move onto the history: a brief foray in the pain factor. The burning and pain you feel when you eat a chili pepper is caused by a compound called capsaicin. Consuming capsaicin triggers pain receptors in the body to send out a warning to you that you’ve potentially done something a little dangerous.
The active ingredient in chili peppers is a compound called capsaicin. When ingested, capsaicin triggers pain receptors whose normal evolutionary purpose is to alert the body to dangerous physical heat. In humans, this is triggered via the same mechanism that helps us drop a hot pan if we forget oven mitts: the temperature sensation receptor TRPV1.
The working theory is that eating chilies gives us the same sensation as if we were to actually eat too-hot bite of food, hence the burn. The TRPV1 receptor signalling may make us feel like perhaps our mouths are on actual fire, but scientists say there isn’t any tissue damage. It’s a brain hiccup: via those pain receptors, our brain is tricked into thinking our tongue is on fire.
So why do we eat them if it hurts? Scientific American thinks we like the burn, tolerating the pain for the pleasure of the whole. In a piece entitled, “On Capsaicin: Why Do We Love to Eat Hot Peppers?” they note:
Perhaps we seek out the painful experience of snacking on chillies while consciously maintaining awareness that there is no real danger to ourselves. After all, people seem to enjoy – and actively seek out – many other sensations that are otherwise undesirable but are ostensibly safe: the sensation of falling provided by rollercoasters or skydiving, the feelings of fear and anxiety while watching horror movies, the physical pain experienced upon jumping into icy water, or even the feelings of sadness that come while watching a tear-jerker.
And in a Nautlius piece about how the chili got to China, the author notes:
Unlike most foods humans are accustomed to eating, the chili pepper causes actual pain when ingested. That pain, scientists believe, is an artifact of evolution. When capsaicin comes in contact with nerve endings it trips a pain receptor whose normal function is to detect the kind of heat that is legitimately burning hot. The receptor, known as TRPV1, is designed to keep us from doing dumb things like picking up a burning branch with our bare hands, or biting into something so hot it would physically damage our mouths.
Over the years, scientists have theorized that the evolutionary reason chilies burn is to dissuade mammals from eating them. In “The Complicated Evolution of the Spicy Chili Pepper,” Harvard’s Cat Adams writes that scientists found that while certain mammals avoid spicy plants, birds do not, attributing this finding to the fact that birds lack the receptor to feel the “capsaicin burn,” whereas mammals have them just like we do. So birds won’t feel any feel pain from eating even the spiciest of chilies, allowing their seeds to flourish. In contrast, if mammals like cactus mice snacked on the chili plants, they ground up all the seeds in their teeth. Not good for continuation of the plant.
So it makes sense, then, that the capsaicin would be an active deterrent for mammals — except us crazy humans who love them — and not for birds. Regardless, we can’t deny the pain. From weapons to the much less innocuous sobbing-while-eating-Sichuan-food, eating chilies isn’t for everyone.
Now, back to the history of chili peppers…
Of course, Columbus wasn’t looking for chilies. As many of us have learned in our high school history classes, Columbus was seeking a new trade route to Asia, hankering for black peppercorns. The peppercorns were known as “black gold” because of their value as a commodity, often used to pay rent or salaries. Until well after the Middle Ages, almost all of the world’s pepper travelled from the Malabar Coast, in India. From there it was traded via the Levant and the merchants of Venice to the rest of Europe — that is, until the Ottoman empire cut off the trade route in the mid 1400s.
Without access to the old routes, European explorers set out in search of new riches for their crowns and new routes to those precious spices, including cloves, mace, and nutmeg from Indonesia’s Molucca Islands.
As we know, Columbus didn’t find black peppercorns or a spice route to Asia. Nonetheless, he named Caribbean islands the “Indies” and the indigenous population “Indians’. He also called the spicy plant he plucked from the shores of what is now the Dominican Republic and Haiti a confusing pimiento, after the black pepper (pimenta) that he so desperately sought. This pimiento, known locally as aji, was brought back for show and tell to the Iberian Peninsula, along with many other new foods that would become commonplace in the Old World.
By the time Columbus made it to the New World, chili peppers were already fully domesticated by the native population. They originated in Mesoamerica, the region that extends from Central Mexico to Central America and northern Costa Rica. Archaeologists trace their gradual domestication back to 5000 BC, in the Tehuacán valley of Mexico — meaning that Columbus was a little late to the game. Early reports from conquistadors cited a large presence of chilies in Aztec and Mayan traditions, used not only to flavour food but also to fumigate houses and to help cure illness. The “chili” in chili pepper is derived from Nahuatl, an Aztec language. (Source: Multiple lines of evidence for the origin of domesticated chili pepper, Capsicum annuum, in Mexico).
So Columbus is responsible for their proliferation in the rest of the world?
Uh, not exactly.
Columbus was the first step in the spread of the chili, but despite the fact that he brought the aji back to Spain, it was the Portuguese and their broad trade routes that can be credited with the rapid adoption of chili peppers elsewhere in the world. As the editors of Chilies to Chocolate note, “so swiftly and thoroughly did the chili pepper disperse that botanists long held it to be native to India or Indochina, but all scholars now concur that it is a New World plant with origins in South America.”
In the American Geographical Society of New York’s journal, Jean Andrews addresses this directly, noting that the Portuguese:
were far more influential the Spaniards in the diffusion of the Mesoamerican plant complex [of maize, beans, squash, and chili peppers], even though the source lay in the Spanish colonies and the complex was first discovered by Columbus on several voyages, probably including the first. (Source: Diffusion of Mesoamerican Food Complex to Europe)
Her reasoning includes the fact that the Portuguese brought a specific type of Mexican-derived pepper (C.Annuum var. annuum) rather than the South American pepper that Columbus called pimiento and transported to Spain, the C.chinense pepper.
In addition, the Spanish trade with the New World in the first part of the 16th century was quite limited compared to the Portuguese, who secretly traded in the New World despite the Treaty of the Tordesillas assigning most of the region to Spain in 1494. And then there was Portuguese explorer Vasco de Gama who discovered a route from South America around the Cape of Good Hope to Africa and India in 1498, setting a path for the chili pepper to leave the Brazilian colony and fan out to the world.
In 1510, Goa fell to the Portuguese under the leadership of Afonzo de Albuquerque. Located in the spice-rich Malabar Coast, the strategic city established increased Portuguese control over the spice trade. Per Andrews, a Portuguese official in India from 1500-1516 reported that the new spice of chili peppers was welcomed by Indian cooks who, accustomed to pungent black pepper and biting ginger, already produced spicy foods. This powerful red plant would do quite well in India.
Chilies from one of my many market wanders in Vietnam.
In the years that followed, New World goods and foods were funneled through Portuguese shipping routes. And the Portuguese empire grew — Brazil, islands of East Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and India — forts, factories and naval outposts dotted its coastlines, where trade between colonies thrived. In addition, the sea lanes to Melacca and Indonesia included Chinese, Gujarati, and Arabic traders, who were able to add New World crops to their existing trade bounties.
Another route of trade started at Diu, which juts out of the west coast of India. Diu fell after the Sultan of Gujarat formed an unhappy and ultimately unsuccessful defensive alliance with the Portuguese in the 16th century. The city’s location made it an important port on the trade routes of the Arabian sea. In the case of our chilies, they went from Diu and Surat on the Gulf of Cambray, inland toward the Ganges, up the Brahmaputra River, and across the Himalayas to Sichuan. Anyone who has sobbed into a plate of Sichuan food knows how important they are to that region of China.
I could go on, but don’t worry I won’t.
The point is simply that the incredibly breadth of the Portuguese empire is directly responsible for the incredibly rapid dispersion of chili peppers around the world.
But for North America the chili peppers came up through Mexico, right?
It seems that this is not necessarily the case.
I assumed the same, that chilies simply came up the relatively reasonable distance from Mexico to the United States. There are some articles that state as much. But the predominant theory from the books I’ve read (see the further reading section below) is that the chili pepper became widespread in the United States during the slave trade, despite being used by Native Americans for cooking prior.
Having been introduced into West African cuisine via Portuguese colonies and trade routes, the chili played “such a crucial part of the African diet that slave traders carried large quantities with them on transatlantic voyages and plantations grew them in gardens for kitchen use.” (Source: Chili: Small Fruit Sets Global Palettes on Fire)
Dried chilies in Bikaner, India
In Chilies to Chocolate, Jean Andrews notes that chili peppers “were to be found nowhere north of modern-day Mexico until after colonization by Northern Europeans.” Around 1600, Dutch and British empires broke the naval hegemony established by the Portuguese, and the market was flooded with more goods. Despite this change, the chili did not take root in North America until the plantation system and African slavery were instituted. Slaves from both the West Indies and West Africa already cooked using chilies, and they grew easily in the Southern United States.
There is a term I learned about in high school called “The Columbian Exchange.” This refers to the exchange of diseases, ideas, food crops, and populations between the New World and the Old World following the voyage to the Americas by Christopher Columbus in 1492. Chilies are one example, but so are many others — coffee in Colombia, tomatoes in Italy, potatoes in Ireland, and the many domesticated animals and infectious diseases that followed.
More than one domestication event in the chili’s journey
The journey I’ve painted here is not the only route the chili’s explosion has followed. In terms of botany, a domestication is when humans turned the wild chili into cultivated forms, according to the interests of people. There were multiple domestication events that scientists believed occurred along the chili’s route to world domination.
Per an article in ThoughtCo about chilies:
Recently, the study of starch grains, which do preserve well and are identifiable to species, has allowed scientists to peg the domestication of chili peppers to at least 6,100 years ago, in southwestern Ecuador at the sites of Loma Alta and Loma Real. As reported in Science in 2007, the earliest discovery of chili pepper starches is from the surfaces of milling stones and in cooking vessels as well as in sediment samples, and in conjunction with microfossil evidence of arrowroot, maize, leren, manioc, squash, beans and palms.
Christopher Columbus encountered the chili pepper in the Caribbean in the late 15th century. Soon after, Spanish and Portuguese traders, obsessed with controlling the spice market, spread the chili around the globe. The red lines and dates chart the chili’s path from country to country. Image via Nautilus Magazine
After all, it has truly spread to much of the world as we know it, now even to our drinking options. Per a 2019 piece in Bloomberg, beer infused with chilies is the next big thing.
While craft beer heads might measure a brew in IBUs (International Bitterness Units, which are used to approximately quantify the hop bitterness of beer) what about a beer’s SHUs (Scoville Heat Units, a measurement of the heat of chili peppers)? Beers with heat are hot at the moment as craft brewers experiment with exciting new flavor combinations. Whether they’re made via the addition of hot pepper juice, oils, or whole peppers, ales and lagers brewed with chili peppers are common enough for “Chile Beer” to be a recognized style on BeerAdvocate.com.
i lived in asia for 8 years, it’s a whole other ball game of behavioural norms.And if the Chile Pepper Institute in New Mexico has their way: space may be next!
*** According to the far-too-long amount of time I spent reading about spelling of chilis, American English is usually chili but can be chile, and UK English is always chilli. A bit more about this dizzying task, via the Columbia Journalism Review’s Language Corner, “The heated debate around chilies“***
Post-article update: My friend Tyler reached out to Mark Miller, who is one of the foremost chili experts in this world. I had wanted to know about which of the theories for North America was correct, if any. His response was essentially that there were wild chilies growing in Texas and the more arid Southwest, and that they were used in Native American cooking. So the plant was known by the Native American Indians and thus there was no specific need for a more domesticated variety.
In addition, he adds that botanical trade routes from Mesoamerica to the North American civilizations are well documented for all the important varieties of subsistence crops, corn (400 varieties in North American from Baja to Maine), beans and squash — which all have their indigenous base in the Southern Valleys of Mexico where capsicum chiles were grown.
He notes, “your link seems correct as far as large scale of domesticated chilies in North America”, but he added that European explorers were poor botanists, and it is likely that Native Indians ate chilies despite their records only referring to corn.
Further reading about the history of chili peppers
A micro-history never satisfies me as much as a book does, so I wanted to make sure to give options for those who wanted to celebrate chili peppers in the kitchen and beyond.
Books about Chiles and the Cuisines that Use them
Cuisine and Empire: Cooking in World History, by Rachel Lauden (highly recommended). Laudan’s long book takes us through history, spanning the rise and fall of the world’s most renowned cuisines. Less a micro-history and more a celebration of culinary philosophy and food culture over time, she teaches us about how food affects everything in society, from health, the economy, politics, society and the gods. The result, seismic shifts in how people eat, yielding new cuisines that dominated the world.
The Great Chile Book, by Mark Miller. If you’re wondering about chilies themselves, this full-colour handbook will give a deep-dive of 100 different chilies, each with description, hotness scale, and description. While there’s little culinary anthropology here, the book is a good start as it does include backgrounders on how chilies are used in cuisines around the world.
Chasing Chiles: Hot Spots along the Pepper Trail, by Gary Paul Nabhan, Kraig Kraft, and Kurt Michael Friese. Chasing Chiles carries a weightier political message, assessing both the effects of climate change on how we harvest and grow our foods, and on where we can turn to if agriculture becomes unrecognizable inc oming years. The authors chose to do this via the lens of the chili because it has “captivated imaginations and taste buds for thousands of years” around the world, making it a universal crop that this book can use as an effective messaging tool. While chiles may be grown away from their original locations, some heirloom species are suffering under the weight of changing soil and environmental conditions. The book interviews farmers, chefs, and ethnobotanists, and includes not only research (and field research!) but also history and recipes from around the world.
Tacos: Recipes and Provocations, by Alex Stupak. Alex Stupak’s restaurant, Empellón Taqueria in New York, is a favorite for many. This cookbook, a further dive into the humble taco, is a beautiful read with glossy photos that will make your mouth water. From the basics – using masa to make tortillas – to condiments, salsas, and moles, this book makes the argument that the late, great Anthony Bourdain made, that Mexican food is ” OT melted cheese over tortilla chips. It is not simple, or easy. It is not simply “bro food” at halftime. It is in fact, old—older even than the great cuisines of Europe, and often deeply complex, refined, subtle, and sophisticated.”
Food: A History of Taste, by Paul Freedman. This illustrated coffee table book aggregates essays from historians around the world to share a detailed chronology of food. Sweet foods, spicy foods, and everything in between – from antiquity to the present day – the book covers not just history but also food etiquette and today’s taste preferences. It’s truly a beautiful book, and one that makes a fabulous present for a food lover in your life.
Spice: A History of Temptation, by Jack Turner. Written by Jack Turner, a Brit with a great sense of humor, this history of spices and the spice trade takes you through the ages and into the minds and palates of explorers from hundreds of years ago to present day.
The Cuisines and Flavors of Mexico, by Diana Kennedy. This is a link to the inimitable Diana Kennedy’s full works on Amazon, as she is clearly an authority on Mexican cooking. She’s written nine books overall, including the one I started with, The Essential Cuisines of Mexico, and the huge (10lb!) Oaxaca Al Gusto, my flavor bible after I moved to Southern Mexico.
Articles about Chili Peppers
The guide to the chilies of Mexico, Lucky Peach. Sadly because Lucky Peach is now defunct, we have lost this amazing piece with animated chilies to delineate between the many in Mexico. From their Ancho section: “Dark brown and triangular in shape, ancho chilies are actually just dried, fully ripe poblano chilies. They taste tangy, like dried fruit with a slight green note, and while they are generally not that spicy, you’ll occasionally find an angry one in the litter. Along with guajillos, anchos are one of the workhorse chilies of the Mexican kitchen: abundant, inexpensive, and ubiquitous in many traditional recipes.”
More via this summary.
The Columbian Exchange: A History of Disease, Food, and Ideas, by Nathan Nunn and Nancy Qian. Citation: The Journal of Economic Perspectives, Vol. 24, No. 2 (Spring 2010), pp. 163-188
Posters Featuring Chilies and Spicy Meals
Because it’s gorgeous: Chiles of the World, by Mark Miller.
And my own poster: a food map of Mexico!
And finally, a big thanks to my brother for the photo of a horse warily eyeing chili peppers, taken from his travels to Nepal.
-Jodi
I really want you to take a trip to Korea. (Unless you already have and I missed it in your archives. In that case, I’m sorry!) So much lovely food in Korea! And lots and lots of chili peppers, which is what made me think of Korea in the first place. ^_^
I haven’t yet spent time in Korea as it’s not the easiest place for a celiac to travel so it’s not been my focus. The sauces often contain wheat products, do the marinades. Some great sweet potato noodles though, if 100% yam and not wheat. One day!
Very true about Korea not being Celiac friendly. I just met a women here in Korea who has CD and ends up eating mostly rice, veggies, and raw fish. Some restaurants who know of her “allergy” are really nice and accommodating by altering the recipe for her. However, if you are very sensitive to contamination….it wouldn’t be fun.
Great piece – very interesting!
Super interesting piece, Jodi. I was secretly hoping for a *Red Hot* Chili Peppers historical post from you… you got it in ya?
You’re not the only one but it wouldn’t have been TOO topical ;)
I’d never even really thought about the history of chili peppers before (or any food item, really). I would have never thought it has such a deep history!
Wow, didn’t know about all that, thanks for sharing! :-)
Jodi, this kind of food history fascinates me to no end. It makes me wonder what Europeans and Southeast Asians ate before chilli, chocolate, tomatoes, potatoes, avocado, pineapple, corn and peanuts were introduced from the Americas. I can’t imagine Italian food without tomatoes, or Indonesian cuisine minus the peanuts and chilli. And I once read that the English were once so wary of potatoes that they started off by eating the leaves.
This post is especially topical as I am finishing up a six-month trip retracing the spice route between Goa and the Moluccas. I am no expert, but it has been a real eye-opener to find shared spices in local recipes along the way. Cumin, turmeric and coriander seed were introduced from the Indian subcontinent to Indonesia, but cardamom, curry leaves and mustard seed never caught on in Indonesian cooking. The exchange went the other way too – while in India I found whole cloves in biryani and pulao rice, and I eventually realised that nutmeg, mace and cloves were essential ingredients in garam masala.
“In Chilies to Chocolate, Jean Andrews notes that chili peppers “were to be found nowhere north of modern-day Mexico until after colonization by Northern Europeans.” ”
Does Jean Andrews consider New Mexico, Arizona, and other parts of the modern US Southwest to be part of Mexico, then? Chiles came north with the thousands of indigenous Central Mexican auxiliaries accompanying Vasquez de Coronado, Onate, and other 16th-century conquistadors and were almost immediately adopted into local cuisines: chile cultivars are well-documented as major crops from the early 17th century onward. On the other hand, African slavery had very little influence in the Southwest, and that only after the US takeover in the 1840s. The trade in African slaves seems like a very likely route for chile to enter cuisines in the eastern US, but its history in the west and southwest is different and indeed the result of direct diffusion and exchange from Mexico.
Hi Phil, thank you for your note. Your thoughts echo Mark Miller’s feedback, which I have included in the post in an update. To both of your points, the reading I had read suggests that widespread use was a byproduct of the slave trade, while chiles were used in Native American foods and grown locally within parts of the Southwest. The quote from Andrews’ book was direct, but she is one of the most well-known experts on peppers and did go to University of Texas, so I assume she is familiar with the area :) I have updated the post with additional notes, so thank you for your long comment.
Hi Jody, thanks for the reply. I’m an archaeologist in New Mexico and interestingly (and somewhat surprisingly), archaeobotanical evidence for chiles doesn’t show up here until after the arrival of expeditions from central Mexico. To my knowledge, wild chiles like the Sonoran chiltepin haven’t yet been documented in pre-conquest New Mexico either. I think many of us find it likely that chile was here before the Spanish, and simply hasn’t been documented yet. But such is the nature of the archaeological record.
At any rate, chile – in the form of domesticated Mexican cultivars, not wild chile – shows up with a vengeance shortly after the Spanish do, and becomes a major food crop across the colony. A couple of links are below. As I said before, I think Andrews is probably right about the eastern United States, just not the Southwest…that’s okay, we’re used to getting overlooked when people discuss US history in a broad sense. :)
http://newmexicohistory.org/people/chile-roasting-in-new-mexico
https://books.google.com/books?id=3vcH_cvN02sC&lpg=PA124&ots=3l5XjgmbEA&dq=chiles%20in%20new%20mexico%20villagra&pg=PA124#v=onepage&q=chiles%20in%20new%20mexico%20villagra&f=false
Thank you Phil! Really appreciate you weighing in. I’m going to go back to Andrews’ books as she is quite the scholar in that topic so I doubt that she’d have made a mistake there. Both you and Mark agree that there is just little record of documenting chili (chile, chilli – I’m giving up here as an Anglophone Canadian since all spellings seem wrong at this point ;) ) use prior to the Spanish arrival.
Thank you for the articles, I look forward to reading them.
The cultivation of chili, a plant native to Central America, dates back more than 7,000 years, even predating the invention of pottery, according to a study published in the journal Science.
An international team of researchers traced the long history of the cultivated chili, analyzing starch microfossils found on stones that were used to grind the seeds of this plant. These are the oldest records known to date. These starch tracks were found in seven areas, the oldest of which are in Central America, with an estimated age of 6,100 years. “The ancestors of great highland civilizations, such as the Aztecs, were thought to be responsible for most of the agricultural and cultural developments in the region,” said Scott Raymond, an archaeologist at the Canadian University of Calgary. “Now we have proof that we owe the cultivation of chili to the indigenous peoples of the tropics and lowlands of Latin America,” he added.
Apparently, culinary processes do not remove all traces of the chili peppers, so the remains of the containers in which they were cooked allowed the researchers to determine the origin of this food.
In this way, the fact that dry and arid areas favor the conservation of archaeological remains, and that, however, tropical regions normally make it difficult, did not prevent the origin of these plants from being traced. “Until recently it was believed that the ancestors of highland civilizations, such as the Incas and Aztecs, were responsible for many of the agricultural and cultural advances in the region,” explained Scott Raymond.
According to the study, Central America, Mexico and Ecuador are the oldest places where chili starch grains were found, among the seven sites where traces of this food were found in the American continent.
These discovered grains date back more than 6,100 years or so, while those found in other areas of the continent are between 5,600 and 5,000 years old, according to samples examined by the team led by Raymond. But, despite its Latin American origin, the hot pepper did not remain in the Americas, and when the Europeans arrived on the continent, they also included it as another ingredient in their gastronomy.
And it is not for less because the hot pepper has a lot of vitamin C. “It is also an excellent ingredient to hide other flavors: if something does not please the palate, just add a little hot chili peppers,” as recommended by Raymond.
This is SO interesting! Thank you for sharing and I hope you do more food history posts in the future. :)
What an interesting post Jodi! I did at first think you were going to write about the band….! Anyway, I too thought that chilli peppers (I’m British!) came to the US via Mexico so it’s interesting to read that not all is quite what it seems. What with the history of potatoes, tomatoes and chilli in chocolate. Umm! I don’t like chocolate!
Have a great time in Meeeeeexicooooo!
p.s. ‘Love the horse photograph taken by your brother. :)
Hi Jodi,
I’m a long time reader and just saw this article linked to in the NYTimes “What We’re Reading” newsletter. So cool!
Emma
Whoa! I didn’t know. Thanks so much for telling me :) And thank you for reading!
I just spent a month in Mexico – you’re going to die over the food! I grew up in Texas and thought I knew Mexican food, but I discovered new delightful dishes at every turn. And Oaxaca is fantastic because the folks there specialize in cheese (oh God the cheese), chocolate and mezcal. Those three things alone made it my favorite place in Mexico! Enjoy your time there!
Thank you Lindsay! Something tells me I might not fit in my clothes upon my return ;) Glad you enjoyed it!
Very interesting. Thank you. I’ll be looking forward to your posts from Oaxaca. In addition you’ve got me wondering…If chilis come from Mesoamerica, where do Chile Dogs come from? Happy Holidays!
Thanks Jodi for this amazing post. I have always wanted to know more about the chilly history and especially the trade and thanks to you in highlighting this. In the past I have had many decisions with friends over the originality of the pepper plant and because I come from the land of one of the hottest chilly in the world (Bhoot Jhalukia or the Ghost Chilly – which now is the second hottest chilly in the world) and always this decisions were with south Americans and they used to get angry on the hotness of the Pepper plant. But yes thanks for this post and great to see the chilly trail. Best wishes A
Jodi
I read your article with interest as I am from Mexico and (I think) I know enough about chiles and its varieties. It is a must that you spent time in Mexico, not only Oaxaca, but Chiapas, Veracruz, Jalisco, Guerrero, Michoacan and Yucatan. Every State (there are 32) has various typical dishes with a variety of chiles. One observation: in the map of food from Mexico, the author must not include ANTICUCHOS…those are original from Peru and are not known with that name in Mexico.
Hi Gloria, thank you for the comment. I will start with Oaxaca but I definitely hope to explore the country in further detail as there is so much to see. I was the one who made the food map and the people I sent the map to for review were from Mexico and did not mention so I appreciate that correction.
This is a great article :)
Coming form Goa, I’m always on the lookout for spicy food, and Chilies are an integral part.
I completely agree that the Portuguese are responsible for the amazing array of dishes (and curries) that are part of Goan cuisine, which are red but not necessarily spicy.
I currently reside in UK and I somehow wish the British would have taken some variety back here when they left…all I can find here are dried really pungent red ones! Doesn’t do justice to the recipes!
Jodi, this was truly an awesome read and it sounds like a fair amount of research went into it too! I’m embarking on a bit of study into the history and cultural background of latin American cuisine and was thrilled to find your blog! Keep up the excellent writing, your blog is a treasure! Look forward to learning more about Mexico- lord knows that’s one country with a unique and delicious food history, I can see why you chose it!!
Thank you Jodi, what an informative read about my favourite ingredient :)I’m puzzled by one question though. I read in a few sources that chilli peppers were brought to India by the Portuguese – however, in Ayurvedic texts, which were complied much before the Europeans set their foot in India, chilli peppers hold a prominent place. Or am I missing something?
Hi Anastasia, from what I’ve read the references to chili in ancient text are actually referring to black pepper and copious uses of it. From what I recall from the books I read, I believe even the words for chili peppers vs black pepper are quite similar in different Indian dialects. Could it be that the references are to peppers but use of black pepper instead? This was the explanation I read, though I am now going to dig it up because you’ve got me wondering. All the books I have read do refer back to Central America/Mexico as birthplace of chili peppers without reference to a co-existing crop in India/the Subcontinent.
Hi Jodi , pretty intresting insight into the chiles world ,i belive we have come a long way in chiles History and development but still a lot to be discovered , here in central Sonora Mexico we have The Wild Chiltepin Conservation and Protection Project (WCCPP) our major concern at this project for now is the protection of 2¨new¨ wild chiltepin variants that grow wild down here and are in a real danger of disapearing due to the few in situ especimens of these populations( one of them has only 19 adult plants) . besides beeing a wild chiltepin land the Sonora State has a rich and flavorful cuisine and many intresting places to visit , if you ever wish to come and visit us we will be more than glad to be your guests , Saludos .
Thank you for the comment Virgilio!
Hello Jodi!
your blog is wonderful, congrats! i really loved this article, i am Portuguese and i loooved the fact that you nailed our historical and cultural contexts! amazing job!
Hello.
Do you know the variety of chili peppers most commonly used in Nepal? Could it be Serrano?
If a recipe calls for cayenne pepper for its health benefits, could i use Nepali chili pepper powder to achieve the same or similar health benefits/taste?
I am a Sri Lankan. The world is aware that chilli pepper % used in Sri Lanka is even more than any other country. I have a question? When chili pepper is introduced to Sri Lanka. What was the alternative used before?
Hi there, per older recipe books white and black peppercorns, ginger, and mustard were used to get heat into dishes, though not spicy heat like the chilli peppers but more warming heat.
good question!
What a marvellous potted history of this glorious fruit.
This article is really well-written. I could follow it very well, with lots of information. I like to read about these old world economies, and you really put it together for me re the size of the Portuguese empire. I need to know more about the route over the Himalayas – good lord! And it’s amazing that the African slaves craved chili when those trades were essentially parallel. Also, I hadnt really thought about the popularity of chili (chile :) as a replacement for the unavailable pepper. So interesting. Thanks for posting.
Glad you enjoyed it, Roxanne! I have a piece on the origins of fish sauce as well, and had others planned for this series but unfortunately a health crisis got in the way. I plan to keep posting them soon!
I shouldn’t comment but I must! There are hundreds types of chili (pural & singular). I had a hard time following the route if chili because it doesn’t specify the type. it seems that things only began to happen after Christopher Columbus, not true. Spanish conquistadores reached the New World prior to 1442, they in fact brought the chili seed to northern NM, the soil, climate, made it perfect for chili growth, especially San Juan, Santa Cruz, Espanola. The chili we eat today, in enchiladas, tamales, with beans was introduced to Native Americans. It was a staple food, not a spice food. It remained that way for centuries, after WWII it expanded throughout California, Texas, Etc. Due to lack of knowledge it was not called spanish food but Mexican food, new was left out. If you ask most people in Mexico about chili, ground, added to meat, they will not be familiar with this dish. Only recently has Mexico started growing similar variety of chili, thanks to New Mexico State. the original seed brought in by spanish still remains in northern NM. Yet Mexican food, restraunts, are heard of throughout the world, similar to real Italian food, real pure chili dishes can only be found in spanish homes or very good restraunts. once you eat this wonderful spicy food, red or green, you’ll never be able to live without it.
There have been quite a few studies that disprove the capsaicin evolution to deter mammals. It’s more about killing a fungus, as in the studies done the seeds with more pungency had less infection from a particular class of molds. Capsaicin is a vanillinoid, and that chemical complex evolved in South America (The vanilla plant and chocolate tree both come from the same region, as a bonus). So the chemical history of capsaicin is written in the chemical evolution of huge swaths of plants in and around the Amazon rain forest.
Since 2016 several new studies have been released that make a VERY strong case that Capsicums evolved on the eastern slopes of the Andes mountains and the Andean clade of Capsicums are all known to lack pungency, but they do have vanilla based compounds in them. This is a pretty good clue that it’s not a deterrent for animal herbivory (animals eating the plant).
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27245634 – Carrizo-Garcia et al 2016, shows the strongest path of evolution for all the capsicum (chili) species.
http://sitn.hms.harvard.edu/flash/2012/issue131b/ – pungency evolution
This has been a really useful article and makes a much more entertaining read than a history book. It’s especially personal to me because of the impact chili peppers has made on my country, Ethiopia. Ethiopia’s food is basically revolved around chili peppers and I, for one, enjoy it. The study of why people like spicy food is interesting but I just eat spicy food because of the fact it’s spicy, and to me, spice adds flavor.
Thank you for this helpful article!