surreal chili photo by pepperazi, via Flickr
Sri Lankan food makes me cry sometimes. We always had SL dinner while living in the states, but it was largely devoid of the burning pain. I used to wonder if this made me less Sri Lankan, but I don’t think it’s so. Apparently chillis are of South American origin and were only brought here by European colonizers. Those bastards! SL cuisine (and Indian methinks) was ‘traditionally’ more bland and flavoured by large quantities of black pepper. This means that all the popular Indian and SL dishes are of less than 500 years vintage. Pol Sambol, Kottu (less than a century), Vindaloo, Hyderbadi Biryani, etc. I suggest we stop eating spicy food and using roads immediately.
Capsicum has been known since the beginning of civilization in the Western Hemisphere. It has been a part of the human diet since about 7500 BC (MacNeish 1964). It was the ancient ancestors of the native peoples who took the wild chile piquin and selected for the many various types known today. Heiser (1976) states that apparently between 5200 and 3400 BC, the Native Americans were growing chile plants. This places chiles among the oldest cultivated crops of the Americas. Capsicum was domesticated at least five times by prehistoric peoples in different parts of South and Middle America.
Chile is historically associated with the voyage of Columbus (Heiser 1976). Columbus is given credit for introducing chile to Europe, and subsequently to Africa and to Asia. On his first voyage, he encountered a plant whose fruit mimicked the pungency of the black pepper, Piper nigrum L. Columbus called it red pepper because the pods were red. The plant was not the black pepper, but a heretofore unknown plant that was later classified as Capsicum. Capsicum is not related to the Piper genus. In 1493, Peter Martyr (Anghiera 1493) wrote that Columbus brought home “pepper more pungent than that from the Caucasus.” Chile spread rapidly across Europe into India, China, and Japan. The new spice, unlike most of the solanums from the Western Hemisphere, was incorporated into the cuisines instantaneously. Probably for the first time, pepper was no longer a luxury spice only the rich could afford. Since its discovery by Columbus, chile has been incorporated into most of the world’s cuisines. (Boland, Purdue)
One thing I wondered was why people ate capsicum in the first place. It doesn’t seem like it would catch on that quickly, what with the blinding pain. My explanation was that capsicum worked well as a ‘rice puller’. That is, I can eat tons of plain rice with just a bit of Pol Sambol. I’d say my favorite meal is basmati, pol sambol and maybe dhal. An egg if I’m lucky. I always figured that some spice would help you get the most of an otherwise unpalatable meal. Was looking around Google Print and not working when I found the following reference in The History of Food by Maguelonne Toussaint-Samat.
Chillies and sweet peppers contain a great deal of Vitamins C and A. The chilli still helps American Indian to compensate for the poor vitamin content of their diet. Because of the ferocity of the chillies the Mayas, Aztecs, and Incas used them in their techniques of torture. They also provided a poison in which arrows were dipped, and the same substance was used to poison reservoirs of water for fishing; fish which died of it were well spiced before they were even cooked. The chilli also has aniseptic powers, and its powder must be dusted over suspect food, or even used to fumigate a room.
Finally chilli peppers have become typical of all exotic gastronomy, and one wonders what those culinary traditions would have done without it. It is as if Italian cuisine were to be deprived of that other American fruit, the tomato.
It’s odd that capsicum was so widely adopted in South and East Asia, but not in the original point of contact – Europe. I guess because it’s a tropical vegetable and grows naturally here, so much so that we forgot where it comes from.
This post is partly in reference to a comment Jack Point left on the arrack poem.
These fascinating food topics are certainly broadening the available spread of Google ads!
I would certainly vote for more food related posts…
Speaking of chillies, curries and the like, if anyone is interested check out this review of a new book called Curry: A Biography .
I cant stand burning chillie… u r not alone :)
Indi,
Intrestingly I was convincing few people yesterday at the GANGES that Chillies did not originate in this part of the world but was introduced to India and South Asia only in the 16th Century. Just to add on to your article here are few points that I knew (Dont ask me from where..proably came down through generations).
It was black pepper that was originally used in Indian Food,.. chillies were added to the reportoire after the 16th century.
Chillies (Capsicum) were accepted so well because they generated instant body heat that made one sweat like crazy.
It was the climatic conditions that made people accept chillies. Normally hotter the region hotter (chilly hot) the food! this is because when the climate is hot sweating out not only helps to keep your body temp down but also assits in preventing sunstrokes… (Some of the hottest dishes come from the hottest regions of India.) In olden days before 16bc it was done by using pepper but later when chillies were introduce they realised it did the same job but faster than peppers and was accepted instantly. But then they realised that chillies were harmfull if consumed in large quantities unlike pepper.. but then!!!, by then it was too late…everyone started enjoying chillies.
Chillie plants also had this quality of preventing water born illness if grown around the reservoirs holding drinking water and knowing this one of the indian Kings in the 16th century (I hope my dates are right) ordered chilli to be planted at all reservoirs and then the rest is history….
looks like Iam getting a bit carried away…… I will stop before I fill your page about chillie .and get carried on to talking about other ingredinets….and its values but then i think its completly a different subject… If interested we can meet up and I can give you all the details about why curry leaves are used in cooking or for that matter why other ingredients are used in cooking or why certain ingredients are used only in certain regions of the world.
whether a recent habit or not, preferance for chilles do define a sri lankan imho.
An excellent piece of research, answers one of my, how shall I put it, burning questions…
Any idea of pre-chillie cooking was like? The same stuff as we eat now minus the chillie but with other spices added in? Or something completely different. Where can one dig out really ancient recipes or cookery books?
I hold the view that one of the nicest ways of understanding a culture is through its food. The key characteristic (I think) that distinguishes Sri Lankan from other South Asian cuisine is coconut. We use coconut where others use oil or ghee and manage to work it into every possible dish.
As Kishore said, I’m pretty sure pre-colonial Sri Lankan food involved black pepper in the same places you’d find chilli, though the possibilities with the latter are much greater. Gernot Katzer has an interesting page with a linguistic breakdown of the words people use for chilli.
i love this site, its mouth watering
We really felt we wasted our dead presidents eatin out at Cuban restaurants. Just to be fair, Lanta thought maybe if we went to a few different Cuban restaurants, one of them would be better. Wrong, they’re all bunk! And shit, they’re everywhere!
We’ve both tried many different types of food from around the world and this gotta be the most boring food I ever tasted in my life. No spice, no flava, just bland. Even Irish food has more flava.
They say “Cooking comes from the soul”. They must not be feelin nathan. Now Lanta’s mom makes some slammin Sri Lankan food, it’s mad spicy.
Baby Z, por qué usted tan amargo? ConfÃe en que algunos malos tornillos en un curso de la vida no importa que mucho que usted sabe…………
hey loku…check ya mail will ya
:-)
Word up, pumpkin? Why the fuck do you think I’m talkin to Loku huh!? Not so.
Hey Baby Z, I’m Dinesh Jayetilleke, remember me I used to hang out with Thushantha “Lanta” Seneviratne back at FSU. How you guys doing? Did you evacuate? I hope hurricane Wilma didn’t do too much damage to your place. I’m a micrbiologist now, I live just outside of Jackson Fla. actually I practically live in my lab. Congrats on your engagement, have ya’ll set a date yet? You’re really lucky you have each other, I’m going on 26 and still going on dates. Lanta’s very suave and good looking in American terms (I’m not gay). You look pretty good too if i may say so. Does he still drive that blue lowrider with the spinning rims? What about your black ’96 Camaro? What a small world we live in: ) Anyways please have him email me so we can catch up.
Baby Z..talk to whoever u want! what the fuck do i care!