It was primarily black pepper that inspired most of man’s great explorations in the Middle Ages, including the discovery of America. Black pepper started America’s trade with the Orient and played an important role in the early days of the United States. On June 23, 1672, the first colonial American took an active part in the spice trade: Boston-born Elihu Yale, who would later give his name and wealth to the renowned University, arrived in Madras, India, as an employee of the British East India. Business. There he established contacts on which he built a fortune in spices. In 1780, Jonathan Carnes broke the European spice monopoly by dealing directly with the East Indies and bringing a shipment of pepper to Salem, Massachusetts. From 1799 to 1846, pepper, valued at many millions of dollars, was brought to Salem by daring Yankee captains who founded the United States Merchant Navy.
Black pepper comes from the dried berry (called a peppercorn) of a woody climbing vine. Its scientific name is Piper nigrum L. It is not related to the pod peppers that red and green sweet peppers and hot (chili) peppers give us.
When Columbus dropped anchor in the New World in search of spices, he discovered chili peppers and made at least two mistakes that we still live with. Thinking that he was in India, he called the Native American Indians. He also named chilies, thinking they were related to black pepper, Piper Nigrum, which they are not. The chili family is called Capsicum.
In the pre-Columbian tribes of Panama, the Shaman (spirit medium) used Capsicum in combination with cocoa and tobacco to enter hallucinatory trances, in order to travel to heaven or the underworld. Today, the Cuna Indians of Panama burn peppers so that the irritating smoke will ward off evil spirits during a girl’s puberty ceremony. They also drag a string of peppers behind their canoes to deter sharks from attacking, providing an earlier glimpse of the pepper’s possible use as a shark repellent.
In southern Mexico and the Yucatan Peninsula, peppers have been a part of the human diet since about 7500 BC, and therefore their use predates the two great Central American civilizations, the Mayans and the Aztecs. From their original use as a wild-collected spice, peppers rose to importance after their domestication, and were an important food when the Olmec culture was developing around 1000 BCE. C. By the time the Mayans reached the peak of their civilization in southern Mexico and the Yucatan. Peninsula, around the year 500 AD, had a highly developed agricultural system. Perhaps as many as thirty different varieties of Capsicum were cultivated.
American wild chiles likely originated in present-day Bolivia by birds dispersing the seeds, eventually spreading throughout Central and South America. Chili peppers were a dominant part of early American diets. The archaeological record in Tehuacán, Mexico southeast of Mexico City, shows that wild chili peppers were eaten in Mesoamerica at least as early as 7000 B.C. C., and were probably domesticated around 2500 B.C. C. For the Incas, chiles were one of the four brothers of the creation myth, Agar-Uchu or Ají Hermano.
Chili peppers were discovered when Spanish explorers arrived in the Caribbean. On the islands of the New World they found small red-colored vegetable pods that the natives used for cooking and that took a strong bite out of their food. Peter Martyr, who came to America with Columbus in 1493, wrote: There are innumerable types of Agi (the Indian name for pod peppers), the variety of which is known for its leaves and flowers. Some were red, some yellow, some purple, some brown, some white. They came in all shapes and sizes. However, the only aromatic plants Columbus found in the Western world were peppers: lots of ají (hot pepper), which is more valuable than black pepper, and allspice, a tree whose leaf smelled like the finest cloves. that I have ever known. He met with, so wrote Dr. Diego Chanca of the Columbus expedition.
The podded Capsicum family proved to be extremely adaptable when explorers sent seeds to Europe. In a surprisingly short time, the cultivation of Capsicum pods spread to almost all parts of the world. In addition, in many places the pods developed different characteristics in terms of shape, color, size and pungency.
The arrival of the New World pepper coincided with the invasion of the Ottoman Turks and resulted in its expansion throughout Central Europe. Suleiman the Magnificent’s armies conquered Syria and Egypt in 1516-17, Yugoslavia in 1521, and Hungary in 1526. The year 1526 is the date usually given for the introduction of the pepper known as paprika into Hungary by the Turks. During this invasion a new crop was introduced to the land of the Magyars. The Turks called it Turkish pepper, the Hungarians called it paparka, a variation of the Bulgarian piperka, which in turn was derived from the Latin piper, for pepper. The bright red powder we know as paprika comes from the dried pods (fruit) of the plant species Capsicum annuum L. As such, it is part of a botanical group that ranges from the sweet peppers we eat as a vegetable to the hottest. of chili peppers Hungarian scientist Dr. Szent Gyorgyi, who won a Nobel Prize in 1937 for his work on vitamin C, discovered that paprika pods are one of the richest sources of absorbic acid (vitamin C).
Peppers are any nightshade (nightshade species) plant of the genus capsicum, such as C. frutescens, the common garden pepper that comes in many varieties ranging from mild to hot, with pungent seeds enclosed in a pod-like pericarp or bell shaped. The term Capsicum is a genus name encompassing twenty species and some 300 different varieties of plants that produce fleshy vegetable pods. Botanically it is part of the Solanaceae family that also gives us tomatoes and tobacco. The three most important species of Capsicums are Capsicum annuum, Capsicum frutescens, and Capsicum fastigiatum. In terms of consumption, the Capsicum family provides us with paprika and chilies.
Chili peppers come in many different shapes and sizes, although they all belong to the Capsicum genus. There are small, round, red chiltepines that grow wild in Mexico and the Southwest and are harvested by the millions each year for sale in the US market. Mirasol is a bright red pepper that, instead of hanging down from the plant, grows straight up. Habaneros are green when unripe and ripen to a deep orange or red color.
