| Origins  | We know that species of Capsicum were domesticated in tropical South America, although exactly where and when it originated is a subject of debate. Many believe chiles first grew somewhere in the area between central Bolivia down to southwestern Brazil, but this remains to be fully substantiated. Chiles did not, despite popular belief, come from India or IndoChina. | Peppers are the fruit of perennial shrubs belonging to the genus Capsicum and were unknown outside the tropical and subtropical regions of the Western Hemisphere before 1492 when Christopher Columbus made his epic voyage in search of a short route to the East Indies. The misconception of the origin of the chile stems back to Columbus' time. Columbus believed he found a new type of black pepper, thus naming it pepper. What Columbus really found was referred to as ají by the local populations. Ají is what we now call the chile pepper. Although he did not reach Asia and its spices, he did return to Spain with examples of a new, pungent spice found during his first visit to the eastern coast of the Caribbean island of Hispaniola (now the Dominican Republic and Republic of Haiti). Upon his return, its popularity spread around the world History | For the peoples of the Old World, the history of the capsicums began at the end of the 15th century when Columbus brought some specimens of a red fruited plant back from the New World to his sovereigns. Plant remains and depictions of chiles on artifacts provide archaeological evidence of the use and probably cultivation of wild capsicums by humans as early as 5000 BC. By 1492, Native Americans had domesticated at least four species. In the West Indies, Columbus found several different capsicums being cultivated by the Arawak Indians. Later, a second species reached the West Indies from Mesoamerica along with other foods like maize, beans and squash. |  | Within 50 years after the first capsicum peppers reached the Iberian Peninsula with Columbus, chile peppers were being grown on all coasts of Africa, India, Asia, China, Middle East, Balkans, Central Europe and Italy. The first European depictions of peppers date from 1542 when a German herbal, Leonhart Fuchs described and illustrated several types of peppers. It was not however, the Spanish who were responsible for the diffusion of New World foods; it was the Portuguese, aided by local traders following long-used trade routes, who spread the plants. Unfortunately, documentation for the routes that chile peppers followed from the Americas is not as plentiful as for other New World plants like maize, tobacco, sweet potatoes, manioc, beans or tomatoes. However it is highly probably that capsicums accompanied the better-documented Mesoamerican food complex of corn, beans and squash as peppers have been closely associated iwth these plants through history. The fiery new spice was readily accepted by the natives of Africa and India who were long accustomed to food highly seasoned with spices. From India, chiles travelled not only along the Portuguese route back around Africa to Europe but also over ancient trade routes that led either to Europe via the Middle East or to monsoon Asia. In the latter case, if the Portuguese had not carried chile peppers to Southeast Asia and Japan, the new spice would have been spread by Arabic, Gujurati, Chinese, Malaysian, Vietnamese adn Javanese traders as they traded traditional wares throughout their worlds. And, after Portuguese introduction, both birds and humans carried the peppers inland. In the Szechuan and Hunan provinces in China, where many New World foods were established by the Spanish conquistadors, there were no roads leading from the coast. Nonetheless, American foods were known there by the middle of the 16th century having reached these regions via caravan routes from the Ganges River through Burma adn across Western China. Despite a European "discovery" of the Americas, chile peppers diffused throughout Europe in circuitous fashion. Following the fall of Granada in 1492, the Spaniards established dominance over the western Mediterranean while the Ottoman Turks succeeded in installing themselves as the controlling power in northern Africa, Egypt, Arabia, the Balkans, the Middle East adn the eastern Mediterranean. Venice was the center of the spice and Oriental trade of central Europe and Venice depended on teh Ottoman Turks for goods from the fabled Orient. From central Europe the trade went to Antwerp and the rest of Europe. It was along these avenues that chiles travelled into much of Europe. They were in Italy by 1535, Germany by 1542, England before 1538, the Balkans before 1569 and Moravia by 1585. Well into the 19th century, most Europeans continued to believe that peppers were native to India and the Orient until Alphonse de Candolle, a botanist, produced convincing linguistic evidence for the South American origin of the genus Capsicum It was only after the Portuguese had carried capsicums and other American plants to Africa, Asia, the Middle East and Europe that the Spaniards played a significant role in the movement of New World crops to places other than Spain, Italy and Western Europe. Chile Etymology Columbus was not in any way deterred from calling the Caribbean Islands he found the "Indies" and the natives "Indians" and the chile pepper, pimiento after the completely unrelated black pepper pimienta which he sought in his elusive East. The indigenous Arawaks called the fruit axi, which was the South American name they brought with them when they migrated north to the Antilles. The Spaniards transliterated this to aji. The Dutch and English were probably responsible for introducing the current capsicum names to the Eastern part of the Old World. In Australia, India, Indonesia and Southeast Asia in general, the term "chilli" ("chillies") or sometimes, "chilly" is used by English speakers for the pungent types whereas the mild ones are called capsicums. It is in the United States that the greastest confusion exists. Both the Anglicized spelling "chili" (chilies) and the Spanish chile (chiles) are used interchangably to refer to either the fruits of the Capsicum plant for as a short form for chile con carne. References Heiser, Charles. 1990. Seed To Civlization: The Story of Food. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Kiple, Kenneth & Kriemhild Ornelas. 2000. "Chilli Peppers". The Cambridge World History of Food. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 281-288. Background Courtesy of Eos Designs |
