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How the chili pepper got to China (2016)
- spaceflunky 8y agoPeople always seem dumfounded when they learn that up until the 16th/17th century not a single Thai dish was spicy.
- holografix 8y agoAnd that Vindaloo is a Portuguese dish
- ithkuil 8y agoThr original Portuguese carne de vinha d'alhos has been modified with local ingredients (e.g. palm vinegar instead of red wine, and local spices) so while the dish is indeed derived from a Portuguese recipe, it's no longer just a Portuguese dish, like everybody will recognize Pizza as bring a typical Italian dish even if you can show that it has deep roots in the Mediterranean cuisine
- mikhailfranco 8y ago... and the -aloo does not imply it contains potato (Hindi).
- toomanybeersies 8y agoJapanese tempura is also Portuguese, and back in Portugal it's called peixinhos da horta (little fishes from the garden).
- mikhailfranco 8y ago... and no Italian dish had tomatoes, so the Romans did not eat spaghetti bolognese. ... and no potatoes in Ireland, so no potatoes in Irish stew. ... and no chocolate in Belgium. ... and only marijuana to smoke.
- dang 8y agoDiscussed at the time: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11566042 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11566042
- SideburnsOfDoom 8y agoLong article, what's the TL;DR? How did the chili pepper get to China?
- asteli 8y agothere's an infographic halfway down the article that explains. yes, you have to click the link in order to see it, i'm very sorry.
- SideburnsOfDoom 8y agoSummary: "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. " So the likely route is: Carribean -> Spain -> Portugal -> India, Macao and other far east ports -> inland China
- mikequinlan 8y ago"The first mention of the chili pepper in the Chinese historical record appears in 1591, although historians have yet to arrive at a consensus as to exactly how it arrived in the Middle Kingdom. One school of thought believes the pepper came overland from India into western China via a northern route through Tibet or a southern route across Burma. But the first consistent references to chili peppers in local Chinese gazettes start in China’s eastern coastal regions and move gradually inland toward the West—reaching Hunan in 1684 and Sichuan in 1749—data points that support the argument that the chili pepper arrived by sea, possibly via Portuguese traders who had founded a colony near the southern Chinese coast on the island of Macao."
- zhte415 8y agoThe article was less about how the chili got to China, and why inland Sichuan and Henan. The answers postulated are poverty and mass starvation (cheap, robust, nutritious, integrates with existing spice combinations), and that there's a link between chili consumption and risk taking.