FL: Let me ask you about the more human side of the movement. Famously, peppers are native to the New World: Mexico or Central or South America, somewhere in that area is where they originated. Can you tell us a story of how they then got to the rest of the world?
Are peppers new world or old world?
Famously, peppers are native to the New World: Mexico or Central or South America, somewhere in that area is where they originated. Can you tell us a story of how they then got to the rest of the world? HAA: Columbus made a couple of visits to the New World .
Who brought chili peppers to the New World?
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 Indigenous population.
But it was when the Portuguese explorers came to Brazil a few years later and brought the chilies to Goa, in India, that chilies were able to spread to Asia and Africa , to the people who could really do something interesting with them. Traditional chili bunches: chili peppers hanging at a market in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Another answer was 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.
What is a chili pepper?
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 unknown to a good chunk of the world until Christopher Columbus made his way to the New World in 1492.
How many types of peppers are there in the world?
Alternate Names: Green pepper, red pepper , sweet bell pepper, capsicum., and more items.
Moreover, how many different types of chilies and peppers are there?
It’s incredible to me how all of the different types of chilies and peppers that we eat today came from a couple of species, and now we have hundreds and hundreds of varieties.
Is there a market for peppers for the medicinal properties?
Apparently, a market exists for the exploitation of peppers for the medicinal properties of capsaicin and several companies are pursuing such investigations.