Some Like it HOT!

A friend from Australia asked me to post something about my favorite spice: chili. No need to prod me here! I couldn’t live without them, besides they are good for the general health. For example, read this article here. Thousands of years before the advent of Tex-Mex, ancient Americans were spicing up stew with red hot chili peppers.

New fossil evidence shows prehistoric people from southern Peru up to the Bahamas were cultivating varieties of chilies millennia before Columbus’ arrival brought the spice to world cuisine.

Chilies appear to be the first spice used by humans anywhere in the world, predating the development of agriculture. Chilies originated in South America spreading over time into Central America, Mexico and the Caribbean carried by birds and humans. The word chilli is from the Aztec Nahuatl language and names the fruit of the plant. There are numerous variations on the spelling of the word chilli including chile and chili. Chili is also known by the names: red pepper, cayenne, axi, aji, agi and uchu.

Chili in Mesoamerica was cultivated as a food crop as early as about 4000 BC2, although the uncultivated (wild) varieties of capsicum annuum in Mexico were gathered much earlier, dating to at least 7200 BC3. Because chili was considered to be an indispensable food and spice it was used extensively by all cultures in Mesoamerica. It appears that nothing was eaten without chili, abit like the Roman who ate everything with a mixture of honey and macerated fish sauce. Chilies were used fresh, dried, smoked or roasted and were added to food whole, chopped or ground—much as they are used today.

Chili, as a dried food item, was traded in the Americas long before the arrival of the Spaniards. For example historically, I have read that the American Southwest and Northern Mexico, where the Mesoamericans, Casas Grandes, Hohokam, Mimbres, Anasazi and Pueblo peoples traded food items and cultural items of significant value. Among the known items traded were Macaw feathers, parrots, jade, turquoise, shell jewelry, salt, cotton, corn, beans, squash. The latter three items are famously considered the three sisters among the Pueblo cultures. Chilies would have been traded as well. Wild varieties of chili, namely chili piquin and chiltepin can be found growing throughout the Sonoran and Chihuahuan deserts of Northern Mexico, Southern Arizona and New Mexico and these were already in use as a food and spice by these Northern cultures.

The significance of Chili was so paramount that it played a role in the Mesoamerican spiritual/cultural context as well:

“The concepts, familiar to the Europeans, of fasting and penance were widespread in Mesoamerica and South America, and without exception the basic penance was to deny oneself salt and chile. The uses of chiles in the New World were not confined to food. Chile smoke was used as a fumigant, as well as a means of chemical warfare, and the Aztecs disciplined their recalcitrant offspring with it.”

The Arawak and Carib Indians in the Caribbean were eating Scotch bonnet or Habanero, Tabasco and the wild piquin chilies when Christopher Columbus encountered them on his first voyage. These chilies are know to be some of the hottest on the planet and must have been quite a surprise to European taste buds. I have witnessed the damage a Habanero chili inflicted on one of my friends first hand: a good friend of mine gave a barbecue party in Malibu once, and by mistake, bought a whole box of the Habaneros, thinking it would make a nice side dish, to be grilled alongside eggplants, mushrooms and other peppers. Well, he didn’t have to wait too long for the screams!  My friend bit into one of them and nearly passed out in agony and shock. Needless to say that I jumped into action and threw the little buggers into the bin. It took several hours for my (girl) friend to recuperate and come back to a semblance of normality. Later I ‘ll post a couple of recipes, including the much appreciated Chili Con Carne, a definite winner in most households, but this one has a twist!