Let me apologize for my voice in this video- it's actually the reason we took on this topic this week; something I've been working on as a side project for quite some time but never fit it into our filming schedule. All three of us- Jaspar, Daria, and myself, got knocked out by this flu that's been kicking around Bangkok lately, and it meant we had to delay filming and readjust as a video we could do on a short production schedule. But in the end it did let us finally get to a subject that's been fascinating me since we got here. Thanks for your understanding! Here are the location pins from this video: Ba Chao Jungle Food: goo.gl/maps/5U4gt3WKwoc5nFkA8 Wraptor (Ari): goo.gl/maps/DQWCJLpFkSx5euXh7 Shree Khodiyar Kathiyawadi Dhaba: goo.gl/maps/VeWpn2zYokKPsZA17 Chuan Wei Fang: goo.gl/maps/bacWezd2N6GPqCut9
This was very well done and I didn't notice a voice problem. You ought to do a video on Asia's two chilli pepper outliers: Japan and the Philippines. In contrast to most of Asia, their cuisines barely feature the chilli pepper at all. Within the Philippines there in another outlier: the region of Bicol (southern Luzon), where the chilli is popular. Japan does have its shishito chilli pepper, but it's very mild.
The reason I was taught about why chilies didn’t take hold in Europe was because of poor medical theory.and religious persecution. The “heat” would throw off your humors causing illness. While many others thought the spice induced lasciviousness and infidelity.the church cracked down on that
No popcorn, no pizza, no chocolate, no vanilla ice, no pineapple pie, no avocado mole and many, many more! My respect for the American Natives which bred and cultivated this plants!
I agree but note that these things aren't really that unique in a culinary sense. They spread more because of their higher yield. Can feed more people and make more profit. For example many things similar to potatoes exist all over the world but none could ever be staples like potatoes. And for chillis, there's plenty of things that add heat to dishes. The only difference is heat from chillis persists longer. Probably more unique is the non-heat flavours from chillis, which there isn't equivalents of. Because you can get the heat, for most applications, even just by using a lot of pepper if it's ground fine. But you would have to use a lot for very hot dishes so chilli would be cheaper to do that and the natural choice. Never mind mustard, horseradish, etc. South America didn't have these things but had chilli.
@@utej.k.bemsel4777 but interesting thing is they had Chickens already!! Spanish documented seeing Chickens, Chickens originate from southeast asia but it is believed to have been traded between polynesians and native south american tribes just like the sweet potato which comes from South America
Interesting to note, Som Tam (green papaya salad) is arguably Thailand's favorite dish for locals, many of its key ingredients like papaya, chili, tomato, and peanuts actually trace their origins back to the Americas. Global influences have always played a role in shaping local cuisines! No culture exists in isolation.
No lie detected. Some Italian purists demand Italian recipes are prepared "The Traditional Way", but when you look, many of those recipes contain tomatoes, which originated in the Americas. Pre-Christopher Columbus, tomatoes were unknown in Europe (same with a bunch of ingredients we now take for granted, including potatoes...) So really, Italian cuisine is a fusion cuisine, and as for tradition, well that's all dependent on how far back you go. After all, traditions have to start somewhere. @@OTRontheroad
And that’s the reason why the origin of Som tum should be from Siam aka Thailand not Laos, because most of the ingredient are from foreign countries, Ayutthaya as a big international city while Laos is a landlocked land.
And this can apply to many Thai food that our neighbor countries love to claim and this channel always tell it’s from them like Som Tum from Laos or Hormok from Cambodia😂
@@vassanab4243 and there's the nationalism argument! Nope, still Lao. I don't really need to go too deep into it because it's a fairly easy thing to research- if you spend 15 minutes on it you should have a pretty good understanding. Although (watch our Khao Yam video for this rant) it IS likely that papaya entered Siam first. So the argument becomes technique vs. ingredients and when you consider a dish a dish. But please don't use this as a cudgel to claim credit for a dish that does have Lao origins.
Actually paprika powder was created by the Spanish in the XVI century (pimentón), the Hungarians loved it and started using it a lot in their cuisine almost 300 years later, but they didn't invent it.
14:32 Something that I've seen food historians omit is the fact that the sauce (Tabasco) derives its name from the peppers which in turn is derived from the Mexican state of Tabasco, named after a prominente, pre-contact, Chontal Maya leader of the region, Tabscoob. Tabasco also is the state in which the progenitor of Meso-American civilizations originated, the Olmec, alongside with the southern areas of neighboring Vera Cruz. The Olmec were quite possibly first to cultivate the pepper and the cacao plant. I plan on returning to Tabasco's capital, Villahermosa, later this year.
@@OTRontheroadI'm glad I could help by adding this footnote. You videos are great! I binged on several over the past couple of weeks because they're written so well. I've rewatched a few because they're also very informative. Keep up the great work.
_Tabasco also is the state in which the progenitor of Meso-American civilizations originated, the Olmec…_ I hope you realize that Amerindians are recent arrivals to the Western Hemisphere, having walked from Asia.
Thanks for the history Adam. Today we can't imaging Thai or especially Korean food without chilies but for thousands of years they were not there. Corn, chilies, and tomatoes all came from the New World and changed the rest of it.
@@panterpanterpanter993 Yes, the chili tradition is luckily one that managed to survive the Spanish and European invasion in Mesoamerica. Even rich white people in Mexico eat chili pepper and I wonder if they ever consider the irony of such a thing.
Today, chillies are so much an integral part of the Indian cuisine that we can't imagine most of our recipes without Chillies (be it green chillies or the dry red chillies). We from the Southern Central part of India(Telangana) use chilli in most of our recipes and we take pride of the fact that we eat the most spiciest(pungent) food in India because of the amount of the spicy pungent chillies that we use in our cuisine.
It’s interesting to know that most of the famous Indian dishes wouldn’t have happened if it’s not for colonisation bringing chillies into the sub continent
The first trans pacific trade route was between the Philippines and Mexico in the 16th century. During that trade, Mexico gave Asia chillies, tomatoes, corn, vanilla, chocolate but in return, mexico got from Asia the limes, cinnamon, cumin, bay leaves, cloves, tamarind, mangos... if you remove the meat, Mexican stews and Indian curries are almost cousins and out of all the Latin Americans, Mexicans are the only ones who sincerely enjoy or "understand" Indian flavors. Both nations already had rich culinary traditions that were supercharged with transpacific trade and today are regarded as amongts the best in the world. I grew up in Mexico and I thought tamarind was from Mexico. We make spicy candy from tamarind paste. Tamarind is from India.
It gives me this weird sense of pride knowing so many things loved all around the world (like chocolate, tomatoes, chillies, tobacco sadly, corn, potatoes, and now even tapioca) originated so close to where I'm from :)
@@wykamix358 lol wtf? there may have been some sort of ancient horses that died out in the americas before the "natives" migrated there, but europeans brought modern horses to the americas. along with pigs, sheep, goats, cows and chickens.
This history is all tied into imperialism and the Triangle Trade including the Slave Trade. Some of it is interesting history, taking pride in it requires too much ignoring the reality to interest me.
It's always fascinated me how the regional cuisines in China differed from spiciness. For example, my native Guangzhou cuisine is not very spicy, but given its historical place as a major port I'd have expected chillis to arrive and had longer to incorporate into the local cuisine! Now it all makes sense, that the ruling elite were not interested in adding the spice into their cuisine, but instead the mountain dwelling regions took to it via the silk road first instead! Amazing video, love the history content!
For those who like spiciness of curry but does not like coconut cream with curry, "jungle curry" or "Gaeng Pa" in Thai is the one to go to. The first time I tasted Gaeng Pa more than 5 decades ago as a student in intermediate school about 55 years ago at the school cafeteria, I immediately knew that this is the one for me. It is full of favors with a variety of spices mixed in, so refreshing. Since that day, other curry can only be a second or third place. Gaeng Pa always holds the first place. It goes well with newly cooked jasmine rice.
@@mjz16 No, I also have this issue, but I also do not like the other spices in curry powder, such as mace, cardamom, or cumin. Also do not like cinnamon in non-dessert foods. So I just eat stew instead, same shit.
OTR team, Thank you for doing this fantastic journalistic piece. Appreciate the research work going into making this highly educational video filled with interesting facts. Well done to Adam and the entire team!
In Dutch, if we want to refer to something luxuriously expensive we refer to it as "peperduur", referencing black pepper being expensive during the dutch indian trading company times
I consider myself a chili head but I never took the time to understand the full history and migration of the chili pepper but I had always wondered. Thank you so much for putting this together! The Thai jungle curries can really light you up but so far an Isan style Som Tum with more raw chilies than green papaya had wrecked me the most. Phet Phet For Life!
Man this channel is a hidden gem. You guys will hit a 100k very soon. Amazing amazing research, great images and slides, and love the trail you're making.
Phew, finally someone able to fill in a missing gap I'd been looking for post-Columbus Exchange, which was, how did chillies spread through SE Asia, which is related to your search to find how they arrived in Thailand! Thanks for doing the heavy lifting and making such an informative video! If you are ever back in the States, give me a shout and happy to give you a tour of NYCs Chinatowns and whatever is going on over here.
Thanks for the video.. being an Indian from South I have always wondered how chillies entered our cuisine because we use black peppers a lot for spice in traditional dishes like kootu (coconut gravy based veggie dish)
Here in New Mexico roasted green chili is the thing, with Hatch chili's being the most famous. Peppers are also allowed to ripen and turn red, then dried, and used to make red chili sauce. You can ask for your dish "Christmas Style" and it will have both green and red sauces, in stripes.
🤍🤍🤍 NM native here!! Hatch green chili is the bestestttt 🌶️💚💚💚 I moved to Arizona 5 years ago and I’m not sure why because it’s close close to NM but the “green chili” here is a joke, so is most of the Mexican food… maybe I’m just bias because I grew up n the best roasted green chili and best dried red chili sauces… I’m sure you know 😋 🤤 I need to come back and just load up during roasting season and freeze a ton to bring back here lol It’s cool too see a fellow New Mexican in the comments 💚
Yes, NM chilies, sauces and food can be great, but unfortunately restaurants where I live in SE NM are pretty mediocre. Santa Fe, Albuquerque, or Las Cruces are a different story.
New Mexican red and green chile is a way of life! Red and green chile are two things I literally can not live without! Glad to see other New Mexicans in here!
Really interesting video, Adam! The idea here that archaeologists, linguists, and botanists all tell different stories of the origins of the chili pepper is fascinating in broad contexts, showing how history isn't just one perspective. All the side stories you share make the story even more engaging.
This was nice. I have grown 100+ different varieties and Piri Piri was my 2nd chili to grow back in 2009. Didn't know that it is that old chili. Was very easy plant with plenty harvest 🙂
Chillis are the best berries, and black pepper peppercorns are the second-best for me~ Love the presentation you all made. I'm so glad I randomly stumbled across your channel! And you are correct -- eating capsaicin on a regular basis literally retrains the receptors for it to become less sensitive to its presence, allowing the diner to take on ever-hotter peppers and concoctions!
I truly appreciate how much effort and respect you give to every culture discussed here when it comes to food. We have so many food snobs or people with weird ethnocentric biases it's hard to get a proper introduction to anything history or sociology related. This is one of the best videos I've seen paying homage to the unique culinary traditions and a fantastic summary of just how global our civilisation has been all these years. I'm sure the likes of Anthony Bourdain would appreciate the content you've been creating. Cheers and Bon Appétit!
One tiny part that you're forgetting is the piment d'Espelette, from Basque country. They started growing chilies in Espelette in 1650. And it is today a staple of French south-western cooking. Basquaise chicken, pâtés, piperade and the classique chocolate and chili pie. In that region, it is as revered as paprika in Hungary : in september houses are covered with pepper braids, like onions.
I'm not a lightweight when it comes to spice. I lived in Thailand, including the Isaan. I've eaten a whole raw ghost pepper. But the phrase, "spiciest restaurant in all of Bangkok" scares me!
My archeology professor at Sichuan University, in China, insisted that rice was only from China, despite originating in places around the globe. He proudly claimed that pepper was from Sichuan, though we know the Europeans introduced it. And was so audacious as to say that corn was from China. I argued with him constantly. He tried to give me a D since students are not supposed to disagree in their culture. My American professor changed the grade to an A+.
I always tell the story of visiting China's national museum for the first time when I moved to Beijing and seeing a display on the greatest Chinese heroes- and one of them was Genghis Khan
Is it possible that something got lost in translation? Pepper (Piper nigrum L.) in Chinese, hú jiāo, literally means "foreign pepper", the name itself indicates its foreign origins. This is also well documented in classical Chinese botany books according to Wikipedia. As the above Chinese term indicates: there are other "peppers" than the "foreign pepper" used in Chinese cuisine. For example, "hua jiao". Also known as Sichuan pepper in the west. Sichuan pepper is NOT closely related to black pepper or chili peppers, according to Britannica. And then there is chili pepper, which is "La jiao" in Chinese, meaning "spicy pepper". Did your professor specify what "pepper" he was referring to?
"Corn" has at several translations in Chinese, one is "Sù" , another is "Yumi". The first, "Sù", can mean both the corn we know today, as well as a kind of millet called "foxtail millet". According to Wikipedia, cultivation of foxtail millet was found along the ancient course of the Yellow River in Cishan, China, carbon dated to be from around 8,000 years before present. Saying that "corn" comes from China sounds incredible. Since even Chinese school children know corn doesn't come from China. Maybe again a translation error. I am guessing your Chinese professor couldn't read English?
@@OTRontheroador could it have been his grandson, Kublai Khan? Kublai Khan was the founder of the "Chinese branch" of the Mongolian Empire (Yuan Dynasty) and made the decision to move the capital to Beijing. Hence it made sense to honor him in Beijing. Moreover, he was recorded as one of the more benevolent Mongolian rulers toward the "Han" Chinese . There were accounts of how much he took after his grandfather hence the likeness in their portraits. The Chinese culture may be considered "inferior" or "phony" in a lot of ways in the eyes of the West. Yet if there is one thing that this Confucian indoctrinated people do take very seriously is the authenticity of their own history. Their scholars may be tainted by contemporary ideology depending on which century they are in. However, peer review among historians across generations/ regimes is a big thing in their tradition and taken very seriously. I do not mean to disprove you since it is not pos for me to know what you saw the first time you went to that museum in Beijing. Since I love your channel and can genuinely feel your passion for history too, I just wanted to leave a comment (I never do otherwise). 😄 great work and very inspirational as always!
One thing that made chili so widespread was its easyness to grow. It's a shrub that can bears fruit within months, while black pepper is a tree that needs years until it can bears fruit. So it's the cheaper alternative to black pepper.
I lived and worked in the border region of Argentina and Bolivia. What I missed most from home in California was chili. The food was excellent and fresh but was rarely spicy. Working in agriculture, I roamed the area, checking crops, meeting locals, and eating local food, mostly grilled beef and chicken, potatoes, and bread. The local tribal groups had peppers picked from the wild and all were small and round and very hot. I think they only cooked with them because the ones I ate tasted terrible. I just noticed how you described northern Bolivia as a variety hot bed. The south seemed quite the opposite.
Wow, fantastic content - i cant imagine a world without this little spicy "fruit" , the Chili peppers ! Thanks for another amazing research, i appreciate your work and love it ! my compliments for this historically spiced vid.👍👋🙏
100% but it’s just all about timing in terms of what happened first- I’d have loved to have gone another 20 years with this story to talk about the Philippines and South Korea and a ton of other stories but it would have been endless
Definitely played a role in sweet potato spread to mainland from what I heard. Saw a vid saying that it's just one pair of Chinese merchants who found it while trading in Manila and thought it'll be good to bring home.
@@cruzergo The Philippines are a bunch of 7,000 plus Archipelago/Islands & Islets with very diverse ( 130 Proto-Austronesian Ethnic groups/tribes ) each have their very own specialty of dishes some regions like it mild and some regions like it hot and some regions like it super duper Hot🔥 We are very culturally & ethnically diversed here.
I remember being shocked when I first discovered a couple of years ago that chilli peppers were nonexistent outside the americas pre Columbus! I mean, I knew from childhood that Corn, Potatos, Tomatos and Tobacco all came from there. but even chillis? I somehow assumed that there have always been variants all over the world. Both African and asian cuisine rely heavily on it. I cannot imagine a world without chilis!
There were actually variants of peppers that we used before chilli's arrived, in Indonesian the word we have for chilli (cabe) is actually older than chili itself and it used to refer to a type of long pepper
This is so well researched, written and presented. I rarely watch a 32 min. vid front to back. (short span of attention, perhaps) This was so well done.
Yeah, I said "species" in the colloquial sense and it didn't hit me when I was writing how misleading that is (given the actual meaning of the term). Just bad writing on my part, not an intentional misstatement
Really informative video. I knew that chillies came to India via Portuguese in 16th century along with a lot of other stuff like tomatoes etc which are now an inseparable part of Indian cuisine.
I am from kerala the southern state of India. You analysis is interesting the birds eye chillies grow wild in this part of kerala and is widely usd in chudneys and pickling. We call them 'Kandari'. But when preparing curries kashmiri chillies are commonly used.
What an utterly fantastic video. I loved every second of it, instantly subscribed to your channel. I would really appreciate if you could add Thai subtitles, so that I can share this gem with my Thai friends. I will look forward your next video ! Another minor request would be for you to write down on the screen the name of the dishes and the places you are at.
Thanks for the interesting history of the awesome chilli. I'm from Cape Town South Africa which is where we had Portuguese and Dutch merchant ships stop along their routes to the middle east, the British then eventually claimed the territory which is why you then mainly mention Mozambique as the Portuguese waypoint as it remained a Portuguese colony.. I love the Birdseye chilli and had it growing in my yard requiring very little upkeep.
If you get a chance, visit the Tabasco company in Avery Island, Louisiana. Its a monster pepper farm and factory. They give great tours in beautiful south Louisiana. I think they produce like a 3 million bottles per week.👍
i love the whole peppers ≠ chilies thing studying old Asian cuisine to find out how they made spicy foods before the introduction of the chili was so enlightening and fun. there are actually SO many different kinds of pepper that are native to Asia, but they are not chili peppers. it's so nifty. :3 love how much the amazing foods of the "New World" impacted the rest of the globe.
I love this story. When I was a kid, you would see birds eye peppers growing wild all over south Texas. They were often used mixed with vinegar, bottled and found on restaurant tables. It was often used to give a simple spinich receipe more flavor.
Same! You can still find tabasco peppers in vinegar on most store shelves here. I keep a bottle of it around for when I make collard/mustard/turnip greens and cornbread.
Great episode, Adam. All I know is that I took a tiny bite out of the "Ring of Fire" Thai chili I'm growing and the burn lasted for more than an hour, even after a couple of beers. I've eaten just about every chili pepper available from Thailand to the US, and that has to be one of the hottest I've ever tasted. I'm waiting for the peppers to turn red, hoping for a smokier flavor to balance the heat, but we'll see. Let Daria know that the best way to deal with the peppers in that Jungle Curry is to have a bottle or more of beer standing by, and never drink water to soften the heat. I'm glad you posted this one since it goes well with the history of Southeast Asia I just finished, and the Henry Kissinger volume next, and I'm in the middle of a comprehensive history of China, all of which make mention of the trade routes over the past several millennia. Without chili peppers, it's certain that life would be much more boring, and I have to thank our avian friends.
I grew up in the midwest, and like you, hadn't had hot Chinese food before. When I moved to Seattle, that changed. I ordered something called 5 Vegetable Chicken and when it came, I counted the vegetables. Sure enough, there were five of them, including the red peppers. So I started eating it all. I went through wave after wave of plateauing at higher levels. I finished the dish and when the waiter came I mentioned that it was amazingly hot. They looked at my plate and said, "You ate the peppers! You're not supposed to eat the peppers." That was a revelation right there. Another time I went to an Indian restaurant and ordered a Vindaloo curry dish. I'd had mild Vindaloo before and tolerated it, so this time I ordered medium. That dish nearly floored me. I broke in a sweat, then had chills and was shivering. The waiter noticed my distress and suggested that I go outside and walk in the heat of the evening and I would soon recover. They were right and I felt better a while later. Thanks for reading.
It’s really interesting that Spain brought chilies to Europe and they had very little influence in Spain’s cuisine. I’m telling ya, there are no spicy dishes here hahah
@@higashirinchiah1013 it’s true we have 2 varieties , and one of them is “spicy” , but no one really uses that one that much. I didn’t know what was spicy until I went to Thailand
@@lauracamargo3229 it's more likely the South East Asia's varieties are blow your mind spicy. I guess this part of the world, we pick the spiciest ones to propagate 🤣 and Spain chose the less spicy varieties but both came from similar origin. If you run through most South East Asian recipes, chili is only used in small quantity in comparison to the ridiculously long list and amount herbs used
As an American (with European family) I'm always disappointed by how tame European food is. (Except for the desserts. European desserts are awesome.) Britain is especially bad - every now and again you'll see videos going around of British people being unable to handle the "hot" offerings of US chains, which most Americans would consider a notch or two above mild. Then again, you could probably just argue that our tastebuds are fried from putting hot sauce on everything... 😅
at this point, I just watch your video without caring about context. Love your work as always. Ps. maybe you should open a membership. I really love to support you guys for making this quality content.
Incredibly kind of you, really appreciate it. Will look into the membership idea- for now, Patreon really keeps us going. That would be the best way to help us if you felt inclined. www.patreon.com/OTRontheroad is the link
When I eat a very spicy dish, I thank native american farmers for cultivating chili peppers. Without their skill and instinct, every cuisine wouldn't be as exciting or interesting. Sichuan la zi chicken is an awesome dish. My first memory of loving chili spice was a hot & sour soup that melted my brain. I had boring toned down hot & sour soup hundreds of times in Taiwan and LA. Then one time we went to a place in southern CA that made it extra hot and that got me addicted to spice :)
The question is why in the last 20 years those who couldn't eat chili started to eat more and more spicy food? (including me) And as you start to eat chili you keep eating hotter food. The funny thing is the hot taste was developed in chili to deter mammals. Why on earth we kept eating it after getting burned the first time !?
At least in "western countries" "ethnic food" has generally become more widespread and more culturally acceptable to eat. Thai restaurants, Mexican restaurants, Indian restaurants, etc are all more common then they were in the 90s. Spicey snack food's such as flaming hot Cheetos, Takis, and more are easy to get and expose people to spice at a young age. Now that spicey food is easier to get it is easier to build up a tolerance.
Well, it shows that we humans do not tend to follow nature too much! We consider ourselves 'ingenious' when we go againts nature. Earth would be much relieved (and prospers) the sooner we are gone until the earth itself is no more... which may be soon with what we are doing.
In Mexico he have Chiltepin Jalapeño Serranos Chilaca Poblano Yahualica De arbol Puya Manzano Habanero And the list goes on the phenotypes are crazy so much variation in the same strain
Thank you, TH-cam algorithm. For I have discovered this channel thanks to you, and I immediately subbed. Great video on chili peppers; I was also blown away by chinese spicy flavours back when I used to live in Beijing. Mad props, man!
In Thai restaurants or street food vendors you might notice some of them has free veggies/sliced cucumber. Eat them while having spicy menu. It'd help you dealing with the spiciness better.
Great video and well-researched topic. Minor concern: The "background" music that's supposed to just supplement the atmosphere is fighting with your narration.
As a teen when I learnt chilis and patotoes are not native to India I was shocked. Still think how our food may taste without chilies and get chills. 😅
Excellent video, I especially enjoyed the origin of how "pepper" became the English name of the fruit. A little fun fact: I live in Hungary and the name of Cayenne-pepper was mistranslated because of this. I assume they only saw the powdered form.... well anyway...
Congratulations on your investigations. It´s not usual to see such an informotive video due to your own hard work investigating these questions. As a Portuguese I´m very proud of our historic importance in the world history. One can say that the stomach rules our life and we cannot doubt how food had such importance in our world culture! Thank you for your work!
Let’s appreciate how hard work and insidious research they did on these channel vids. Ngl, not everyone know about this regionly-good places in Thailand at the very beginning.
This is a very interesing and infor mative video about the history and influence of chili peppers in global cuisine. I really enjoyed how you narrated the story of chili peppers spreading from the time of christopher columbus to the present day. Thank you for sharing this knowledge!
There are a few relevant omissions. The main route Mexican chili arrived in Asia was through the "Nao de China" that started trade from today's Philippines and Mexico from 1565 onwards. The red bell pepper is the adaptation of the poblano chile to Spain, that pepper turns sweet just after a few generation (about 2 years) Spaniards' also found out that some other varieties of chiles would remain hot when grown in their north African colonies (I.e. Morocco and the Canary Islands). The only Latin-American countries that have chili in their typical food are México, Perú and to a lesser degree Guatemala. Capsicum Annuum has a Mexican origin and Capsicum Frutescens origin is Peruvian. Chesse dip is not Mexican food, it is a US thing you don't find in Mexico unless you're in an US restaurant food chain. Portugal got access to chili in Africa from the Spanish colonies trough trade and the rest is history, The Portuguese didn't really go inland n Brazil, they remained mostly close to the sea (check the location of most of the city's they founded) and it's really unlikely they had access to the wild chilis from deep in the Amazon.
11:36 As a Mexican it hurts for you to refer to the cheese dip and hard shell quesadilla you had in Bangkok as Mexican cuisine 🤣 that's of course the US take on Mexican inspired flavors but definitely not representative (as in Mac&cheese refered as Italian food). Still of course, nice piece and amazing story but please come to (southern) Mexico, you'll die on the use and varieties of chilis, uses and flavors @OTR
Oh my god that Sichuan dish is my family and I’s favorite dish of all time. Anytime we all fly to our hometown, we go and eat that dish, sometimes multiple days in a row bc we’re addicted and can’t get it in many places in the US. Cool to see it’s so impactful to you too
Thanks for mentioning Hungary, the country that out of all Europeans probably adopted the plant most strongly in Europe, using it in pretty much every dish and having it's own unique varieties. When people talk about Europe they tend to concentrate on the western countries and tend to overlook places further east.
A friend of mine heard the birds were immune to the heat from chilies, so he fed some old chilies flakes to his chickens, which greatly distressed the chickens. It seems that not all birds are entirely immune to the heat from chilies.
In North Africa, we (still) call the Mexican chili pepper (the thin long red one) "felfel barlaabid", which literally translates to "pepper from the land of the Slaves" (since it came from the americas)
@@randangbalado there was slavery everywhere, enslaving all sorts of races, but I guess from the African perspective, ships come to take slaves to America, so America must be filled with slaves
@@pardismack They didn't take them, they bought them for weapons and liquor. It was black Africans who went far into the African continent to collect people who they sold as slaves. Unfortunately, slavery still happens in Africa.
It feels ignorant and disrespectful, surely it can be called what it is since you know better. Not everyone here at that time was a slave. If many cultures had slaves why are their areas not also called "Land of Slaves"? We should maintain our consciousness.
Thank you! Loved this SO much. Glad you have Daria speaking more on site, too. For the last few years, I've been making western style, fermented Chili sauce from Thai chilies. I'd love to give you-all a bottle as a gift, if you're ever up in the Chiang Mai area. It may be worth noting the names of the spices in Thai; Black Pepper is called "Prick Thai" which suggests it's the original "Prick" (hot spice) and the chilis here all have names concerning their size, shape or origin; "Prick Kee Nue" (mouse poop chili.) Prick Chee Faa (sky pointing chili, which looks like the Chinese ornamental you showed and IS still sold as an ornamental in the West.) Prick Gariang (Karan Chili, used by the 'Hill Tribes' the white version will rip your face off!)
07:41 according to Javanese manuscripts and inscriptions that date back to the 10th century, Javanese long pepper (Piper retrofracrum) was what used in recipes before the advent of chili pepper. As for the current chili peppers that we know and love, in Indonesia we're taught in school that they were brought to the Indonesian archipelago in the 15th century by the Portuguese during the expedition of Ferdinand Magellan. Just like in Thailand, we in Indonesia can't imagine our food without chili peppers. So some might say that it's the only good thing that came from Western colonization 😥
Interesting story. It wouldn't have been from the 15th century- that would be impossible as Magellan didn't start sailing until 1505. In my opinion it's likely that chilis would have arrived from India prior to Magellan's arrival. But as he did participate in the colonization of Malacca...maybe it's possible? Feels like a legend but there's not a zero chance
@@OTRontheroad whoops, sorry, I always get my centuries mixed up. It was supposed to be 16th century. I saw fifteen hundreds and immediately thought 15th century 😅 Our history books at school only mention chilies in passing, but it is said after Magellan died in the Philippines on 27th of April 1521, his ships went on and arrived in Spice Islands (Maluku, eastern Indonesia) on 8 November. But is also said that the Portuguese were already in contact with the islands at least 15 years prior to that. So there was also the possibility that chilies had been brought over by other Portuguese vessels that sailed eastward from Europe to the Spice Islands via the Indian Ocean (as opposed to Magellan’s westward expedition from Spain passing the Pacific). Another less popular theory is that it was the Spanish who brought it to Indonesia, landing in North Sulawesi after the Philippines. It’s all speculations, really.
@@KilanEatsandDrinks I love this kind of speculation. And see my edit to the above post- I did look it up and it does seem like Magellan was at Malacca in 1511 when the Portuguese took over...so....maybe?
@@OTRontheroad IKR? I wouldn’t discount the Spanish theory either. Not directly related with chilies, but in some places in Maluku ‘tomato’ is ‘kamatil’ which is similar to ‘kamatis’ in Tagalog, which is of course a Spanish loan word and ultimately from Nahuatl ‘tomatl’. If only those Spanish forts in eastern Indonesia could talk…
@@KilanEatsandDrinks I was really optimistic about tracing the genetic origin of each strain and figuring out its path that way. But then India f****** everything up by liking the peppers and using all varietals, then it all gets crazy
Let me apologize for my voice in this video- it's actually the reason we took on this topic this week; something I've been working on as a side project for quite some time but never fit it into our filming schedule. All three of us- Jaspar, Daria, and myself, got knocked out by this flu that's been kicking around Bangkok lately, and it meant we had to delay filming and readjust as a video we could do on a short production schedule. But in the end it did let us finally get to a subject that's been fascinating me since we got here. Thanks for your understanding!
Here are the location pins from this video:
Ba Chao Jungle Food: goo.gl/maps/5U4gt3WKwoc5nFkA8
Wraptor (Ari): goo.gl/maps/DQWCJLpFkSx5euXh7
Shree Khodiyar Kathiyawadi Dhaba: goo.gl/maps/VeWpn2zYokKPsZA17
Chuan Wei Fang: goo.gl/maps/bacWezd2N6GPqCut9
Thanks for sharing the locations ❤
Almost like the same paraflu that was knocking around here in the Netherlands…oh no new pandemics!! More chillies!!!
This was very well done and I didn't notice a voice problem.
You ought to do a video on Asia's two chilli pepper outliers: Japan and the Philippines. In contrast to most of Asia, their cuisines barely feature the chilli pepper at all. Within the Philippines there in another outlier: the region of Bicol (southern Luzon), where the chilli is popular. Japan does have its shishito chilli pepper, but it's very mild.
The reason I was taught about why chilies didn’t take hold in Europe was because of poor medical theory.and religious persecution.
The “heat” would throw off your humors causing illness. While many others thought the spice induced lasciviousness and infidelity.the church cracked down on that
What is wrong with your voice? I am watching this as the first of your videos. Is your voic usually different?
It's weird to think that 500 years ago:
There were no potatoes in Ireland
There were no tomatoes in Italy
There were no chilies in Thailand
And all it cost was my peoples' destruction ;_;
No popcorn, no pizza, no chocolate, no vanilla ice, no pineapple pie, no avocado mole and many, many more!
My respect for the American Natives which bred and cultivated this plants!
The world should thank the Americas
And beans
And squash
And peanuts
And.....
Yeah bizarre..1000 years ago what did they eat in India, Thailand, Ireland etc? Must have been boring lol
The native Americans really came out swinging for the best of food category: chocolate, chilis, tomatoes corn potatoes squash.
I agree but note that these things aren't really that unique in a culinary sense. They spread more because of their higher yield. Can feed more people and make more profit. For example many things similar to potatoes exist all over the world but none could ever be staples like potatoes. And for chillis, there's plenty of things that add heat to dishes. The only difference is heat from chillis persists longer. Probably more unique is the non-heat flavours from chillis, which there isn't equivalents of. Because you can get the heat, for most applications, even just by using a lot of pepper if it's ground fine. But you would have to use a lot for very hot dishes so chilli would be cheaper to do that and the natural choice. Never mind mustard, horseradish, etc. South America didn't have these things but had chilli.
Yeah, they were only somewhat missing with draft animals and a few livestock. Do they chickens pre-contact?
@@nunyabiznes33No, they had llamas, dogs, guinea-pigs, ducks and turkeys.
Vanilla, Sweet Potatos, Avocados, Cassava, peanuts etc
@@utej.k.bemsel4777 but interesting thing is they had Chickens already!! Spanish documented seeing Chickens, Chickens originate from southeast asia but it is believed to have been traded between polynesians and native south american tribes just like the sweet potato which comes from South America
Interesting to note, Som Tam (green papaya salad) is arguably Thailand's favorite dish for locals, many of its key ingredients like papaya, chili, tomato, and peanuts actually trace their origins back to the Americas. Global influences have always played a role in shaping local cuisines! No culture exists in isolation.
Fantastic comment and truly interesting to think about. Would love to do a deep dive into whatever "Tam Som" might have included pre-1500s.
No lie detected. Some Italian purists demand Italian recipes are prepared "The Traditional Way", but when you look, many of those recipes contain tomatoes, which originated in the Americas. Pre-Christopher Columbus, tomatoes were unknown in Europe (same with a bunch of ingredients we now take for granted, including potatoes...)
So really, Italian cuisine is a fusion cuisine, and as for tradition, well that's all dependent on how far back you go. After all, traditions have to start somewhere. @@OTRontheroad
And that’s the reason why the origin of Som tum should be from Siam aka Thailand not Laos, because most of the ingredient are from foreign countries, Ayutthaya as a big international city while Laos is a landlocked land.
And this can apply to many Thai food that our neighbor countries love to claim and this channel always tell it’s from them like Som Tum from Laos or Hormok from Cambodia😂
@@vassanab4243 and there's the nationalism argument! Nope, still Lao. I don't really need to go too deep into it because it's a fairly easy thing to research- if you spend 15 minutes on it you should have a pretty good understanding. Although (watch our Khao Yam video for this rant) it IS likely that papaya entered Siam first. So the argument becomes technique vs. ingredients and when you consider a dish a dish. But please don't use this as a cudgel to claim credit for a dish that does have Lao origins.
Actually paprika powder was created by the Spanish in the XVI century (pimentón), the Hungarians loved it and started using it a lot in their cuisine almost 300 years later, but they didn't invent it.
14:32 Something that I've seen food historians omit is the fact that the sauce (Tabasco) derives its name from the peppers which in turn is derived from the Mexican state of Tabasco, named after a prominente, pre-contact, Chontal Maya leader of the region, Tabscoob.
Tabasco also is the state in which the progenitor of Meso-American civilizations originated, the Olmec, alongside with the southern areas of neighboring Vera Cruz. The Olmec were quite possibly first to cultivate the pepper and the cacao plant.
I plan on returning to Tabasco's capital, Villahermosa, later this year.
That's a great note and thank you for pointing it out.
@@OTRontheroadI'm glad I could help by adding this footnote.
You videos are great! I binged on several over the past couple of weeks because they're written so well. I've rewatched a few because they're also very informative. Keep up the great work.
interesting
_Tabasco also is the state in which the progenitor of Meso-American civilizations originated, the Olmec…_
I hope you realize that Amerindians are recent arrivals to the Western Hemisphere, having walked from Asia.
@@John.Flower.Productions
What do you understand from “RECENT ARRIVALS”???
Thanks for the history Adam. Today we can't imaging Thai or especially Korean food without chilies but for thousands of years they were not there. Corn, chilies, and tomatoes all came from the New World and changed the rest of it.
Potatoes too!
This is true of everywhere outside of central & South America.
And chocolate also native to mesoamerica
@@shakiMiki JAJA JAJAJAJAJA CENTRAL AND SOUTH AMERICA DOESNT EAT CHILES AT ALL , IS MEXICAN DEAR MEXICAN CHILES AND SAUCES ARE THE BEAST
@@panterpanterpanter993 Yes, the chili tradition is luckily one that managed to survive the Spanish and European invasion in Mesoamerica. Even rich white people in Mexico eat chili pepper and I wonder if they ever consider the irony of such a thing.
Today, chillies are so much an integral part of the Indian cuisine that we can't imagine most of our recipes without Chillies (be it green chillies or the dry red chillies).
We from the Southern Central part of India(Telangana) use chilli in most of our recipes and we take pride of the fact that we eat the most spiciest(pungent) food in India because of the amount of the spicy pungent chillies that we use in our cuisine.
Have you tried Naga king chili or Bhut jolkia?
It’s interesting to know that most of the famous Indian dishes wouldn’t have happened if it’s not for colonisation bringing chillies into the sub continent
The first trans pacific trade route was between the Philippines and Mexico in the 16th century. During that trade, Mexico gave Asia chillies, tomatoes, corn, vanilla, chocolate but in return, mexico got from Asia the limes, cinnamon, cumin, bay leaves, cloves, tamarind, mangos... if you remove the meat, Mexican stews and Indian curries are almost cousins and out of all the Latin Americans, Mexicans are the only ones who sincerely enjoy or "understand" Indian flavors. Both nations already had rich culinary traditions that were supercharged with transpacific trade and today are regarded as amongts the best in the world. I grew up in Mexico and I thought tamarind was from Mexico. We make spicy candy from tamarind paste. Tamarind is from India.
In Sri Lanka, we call the spicy Capsicum frutescens varieties කොච්චි (Kochchi) in Sinhala, perhaps in reference to the city of Kochi.
@@zurielsss colonization has nothing to do with this. Chilli would've arrived to india by trade just like it did to china, korea, japan or thailand.
It gives me this weird sense of pride knowing so many things loved all around the world (like chocolate, tomatoes, chillies, tobacco sadly, corn, potatoes, and now even tapioca) originated so close to where I'm from :)
Vanilla, sunflowers, and if you look far back enough.. camels.
@@cloudchaser907also horses originate in the Americas
@@wykamix358 lol wtf? there may have been some sort of ancient horses that died out in the americas before the "natives" migrated there, but europeans brought modern horses to the americas. along with pigs, sheep, goats, cows and chickens.
This history is all tied into imperialism and the Triangle Trade including the Slave Trade. Some of it is interesting history, taking pride in it requires too much ignoring the reality to interest me.
@@wykamix358How were the Romans and the Medieval knights getting around before “American horses?” I believe you have this one backwards.
It's always fascinated me how the regional cuisines in China differed from spiciness. For example, my native Guangzhou cuisine is not very spicy, but given its historical place as a major port I'd have expected chillis to arrive and had longer to incorporate into the local cuisine! Now it all makes sense, that the ruling elite were not interested in adding the spice into their cuisine, but instead the mountain dwelling regions took to it via the silk road first instead!
Amazing video, love the history content!
Mountain dwellers also need spices for their rotting meat to be edible probably 😂
@@zurielsss mountain dwellers also ate mushrooms and herbs that city folks wouldn't be able to afford.
For those who like spiciness of curry but does not like coconut cream with curry, "jungle curry" or "Gaeng Pa" in Thai is the one to go to. The first time I tasted Gaeng Pa more than 5 decades ago as a student in intermediate school about 55 years ago at the school cafeteria, I immediately knew that this is the one for me. It is full of favors with a variety of spices mixed in, so refreshing. Since that day, other curry can only be a second or third place. Gaeng Pa always holds the first place. It goes well with newly cooked jasmine rice.
"jungle curry" แปลตรงไปเปล่า เข้าใจเฉพาะคนไทย เมือน banana wood ที่ฝรั่งเข้าใจว่าเอาไม้ไปแกะสลักเป็นกล้วย ไม่ใช่กล้วยไม้
My favorite after jungle curry is แกงรัญจวน but it's hard to find. I've only eaten it a few times.
แถวบ้านมีแกงระแวง ไม่รู้จะแปลว่าอะไร suspicious and alertness curry
Does all curry have turmeric? I can’t seem to train myself to like turmeric so I’ve avoided all curry.
@@mjz16 No, I also have this issue, but I also do not like the other spices in curry powder, such as mace, cardamom, or cumin. Also do not like cinnamon in non-dessert foods. So I just eat stew instead, same shit.
OTR team,
Thank you for doing this fantastic journalistic piece. Appreciate the research work going into making this highly educational video filled with interesting facts. Well done to Adam and the entire team!
In Dutch, if we want to refer to something luxuriously expensive we refer to it as "peperduur", referencing black pepper being expensive during the dutch indian trading company times
wow that's really cool to know! thank you
This phrase exists in Hungarian: 'Borsos ára van'.
Don't know if other countries picked up on it.
@@OTRontheroadIn Croatia, Serbia and other south European Slavic countries it is the same. We say that the price is “paprena” (peppery).
In Polish it is about salt. High price, cost is salty.
I consider myself a chili head but I never took the time to understand the full history and migration of the chili pepper but I had always wondered. Thank you so much for putting this together! The Thai jungle curries can really light you up but so far an Isan style Som Tum with more raw chilies than green papaya had wrecked me the most. Phet Phet For Life!
Man this channel is a hidden gem. You guys will hit a 100k very soon. Amazing amazing research, great images and slides, and love the trail you're making.
Seriously, this was one of my favorite episodes! Huge thanks and respect to your hard work on this video. 🙏
Phew, finally someone able to fill in a missing gap I'd been looking for post-Columbus Exchange, which was, how did chillies spread through SE Asia, which is related to your search to find how they arrived in Thailand! Thanks for doing the heavy lifting and making such an informative video! If you are ever back in the States, give me a shout and happy to give you a tour of NYCs Chinatowns and whatever is going on over here.
Thanks for the video.. being an Indian from South I have always wondered how chillies entered our cuisine because we use black peppers a lot for spice in traditional dishes like kootu (coconut gravy based veggie dish)
Grew up on the Caribbean Islands Brids Eye were everywhere in the wild
@@troystpaul100really
So Fluffy had it backwards: Indians love hot and spicy; Mexicans invented hot and spicy.
Spicy 🌶 - Guntur chilli, India ❤❤
@@scottgrohs5940They still had black pepper. India has always been a major exporter of black pepper and long pepper.
Here in New Mexico roasted green chili is the thing, with Hatch chili's being the most famous. Peppers are also allowed to ripen and turn red, then dried, and used to make red chili sauce. You can ask for your dish "Christmas Style" and it will have both green and red sauces, in stripes.
🤍🤍🤍 NM native here!! Hatch green chili is the bestestttt 🌶️💚💚💚
I moved to Arizona 5 years ago and I’m not sure why because it’s close close to NM but the “green chili” here is a joke, so is most of the Mexican food… maybe I’m just bias because I grew up n the best roasted green chili and best dried red chili sauces… I’m sure you know 😋 🤤
I need to come back and just load up during roasting season and freeze a ton to bring back here lol
It’s cool too see a fellow New Mexican in the comments 💚
Yes, NM chilies, sauces and food can be great, but unfortunately restaurants where I live in SE NM are pretty mediocre. Santa Fe, Albuquerque, or Las Cruces are a different story.
New Mexican red and green chile is a way of life! Red and green chile are two things I literally can not live without! Glad to see other New Mexicans in here!
Really interesting video, Adam! The idea here that archaeologists, linguists, and botanists all tell different stories of the origins of the chili pepper is fascinating in broad contexts, showing how history isn't just one perspective. All the side stories you share make the story even more engaging.
This was nice. I have grown 100+ different varieties and Piri Piri was my 2nd chili to grow back in 2009. Didn't know that it is that old chili. Was very easy plant with plenty harvest 🙂
Chillis are the best berries, and black pepper peppercorns are the second-best for me~ Love the presentation you all made. I'm so glad I randomly stumbled across your channel! And you are correct -- eating capsaicin on a regular basis literally retrains the receptors for it to become less sensitive to its presence, allowing the diner to take on ever-hotter peppers and concoctions!
What are we gonna do without berries
Black peppercorns don’t have capsaicin like chilis. Their heat actually soothes digestion instead of upset it.
@@mikewhocheeseharry5292do you have more info on this actually, have been curious about that for a while
Agreed! without Asia, Hindustan, and the Americas, we would all be eating pretty lame foods.
@@krono5el why did you switch to hindustan for India while writing the rest of the comment in English 😂😂
I truly appreciate how much effort and respect you give to every culture discussed here when it comes to food. We have so many food snobs or people with weird ethnocentric biases it's hard to get a proper introduction to anything history or sociology related. This is one of the best videos I've seen paying homage to the unique culinary traditions and a fantastic summary of just how global our civilisation has been all these years. I'm sure the likes of Anthony Bourdain would appreciate the content you've been creating. Cheers and Bon Appétit!
One tiny part that you're forgetting is the piment d'Espelette, from Basque country. They started growing chilies in Espelette in 1650. And it is today a staple of French south-western cooking. Basquaise chicken, pâtés, piperade and the classique chocolate and chili pie. In that region, it is as revered as paprika in Hungary : in september houses are covered with pepper braids, like onions.
Bruuuh. This is quality doc production. Enjoyed it.
I'm not a lightweight when it comes to spice. I lived in Thailand, including the Isaan. I've eaten a whole raw ghost pepper. But the phrase, "spiciest restaurant in all of Bangkok" scares me!
My archeology professor at Sichuan University, in China, insisted that rice was only from China, despite originating in places around the globe. He proudly claimed that pepper was from Sichuan, though we know the Europeans introduced it. And was so audacious as to say that corn was from China. I argued with him constantly. He tried to give me a D since students are not supposed to disagree in their culture. My American professor changed the grade to an A+.
I always tell the story of visiting China's national museum for the first time when I moved to Beijing and seeing a display on the greatest Chinese heroes- and one of them was Genghis Khan
Is it possible that something got lost in translation? Pepper (Piper nigrum L.) in Chinese, hú jiāo, literally means "foreign pepper", the name itself indicates its foreign origins. This is also well documented in classical Chinese botany books according to Wikipedia.
As the above Chinese term indicates: there are other "peppers" than the "foreign pepper" used in Chinese cuisine. For example, "hua jiao". Also known as Sichuan pepper in the west. Sichuan pepper is NOT closely related to black pepper or chili peppers, according to Britannica.
And then there is chili pepper, which is "La jiao" in Chinese, meaning "spicy pepper".
Did your professor specify what "pepper" he was referring to?
"Corn" has at several translations in Chinese, one is "Sù" , another is "Yumi". The first, "Sù", can mean both the corn we know today, as well as a kind of millet called "foxtail millet". According to Wikipedia, cultivation of foxtail millet was found along the ancient course of the Yellow River in Cishan, China, carbon dated to be from around 8,000 years before present. Saying that "corn" comes from China sounds incredible. Since even Chinese school children know corn doesn't come from China. Maybe again a translation error. I am guessing your Chinese professor couldn't read English?
@@OTRontheroador could it have been his grandson, Kublai Khan? Kublai Khan was the founder of the "Chinese branch" of the Mongolian Empire (Yuan Dynasty) and made the decision to move the capital to Beijing. Hence it made sense to honor him in Beijing. Moreover, he was recorded as one of the more benevolent Mongolian rulers toward the "Han" Chinese . There were accounts of how much he took after his grandfather hence the likeness in their portraits. The Chinese culture may be considered "inferior" or "phony" in a lot of ways in the eyes of the West. Yet if there is one thing that this Confucian indoctrinated people do take very seriously is the authenticity of their own history. Their scholars may be tainted by contemporary ideology depending on which century they are in. However, peer review among historians across generations/ regimes is a big thing in their tradition and taken very seriously.
I do not mean to disprove you since it is not pos for me to know what you saw the first time you went to that museum in Beijing. Since I love your channel and can genuinely feel your passion for history too, I just wanted to leave a comment (I never do otherwise). 😄 great work and very inspirational as always!
One thing that made chili so widespread was its easyness to grow. It's a shrub that can bears fruit within months, while black pepper is a tree that needs years until it can bears fruit. So it's the cheaper alternative to black pepper.
black pepper is a vine, chili is a plant much like potatoes or tomatoes, you put seeds in the ground every season..
@@SideWalkAstronomyNetherlands On tropical climate chili is a perennial plant. They can last for around 5 years.
I'm so happy this ended up in my feed. As a foodie and history nerd this was a delight, what well researched and brilliantly done video, thank you!
I lived and worked in the border region of Argentina and Bolivia. What I missed most from home in California was chili. The food was excellent and fresh but was rarely spicy. Working in agriculture, I roamed the area, checking crops, meeting locals, and eating local food, mostly grilled beef and chicken, potatoes, and bread. The local tribal groups had peppers picked from the wild and all were small and round and very hot. I think they only cooked with them because the ones I ate tasted terrible. I just noticed how you described northern Bolivia as a variety hot bed. The south seemed quite the opposite.
Factual, no click baits, historical, explaining and from the heart...
Subd and recommended!
Wow, fantastic content - i cant imagine a world without this little spicy "fruit" , the Chili peppers ! Thanks for another amazing research, i appreciate your work and love it ! my compliments for this historically spiced vid.👍👋🙏
Excellent episode- one of your best! Bourdain would be proud.
While the Silk Road may have been a route of spread, the Manila-Acapulco galleon trade surely played a role too 😊😊
100% but it’s just all about timing in terms of what happened first- I’d have loved to have gone another 20 years with this story to talk about the Philippines and South Korea and a ton of other stories but it would have been endless
Definitely played a role in sweet potato spread to mainland from what I heard. Saw a vid saying that it's just one pair of Chinese merchants who found it while trading in Manila and thought it'll be good to bring home.
Interesting that majority of Filipino dishes are not spicy although the islands were first exposed to chilis among Asian countries.
@@cruzergo The Philippines are a bunch of 7,000 plus Archipelago/Islands & Islets with very diverse ( 130 Proto-Austronesian Ethnic groups/tribes ) each have their very own specialty of dishes some regions like it mild and some regions like it hot and some regions like it super duper Hot🔥 We are very culturally & ethnically diversed here.
Now THIS is my type of video mate!! 🌶️❤️ I can't imagine a life without chilli ever again.
Korea's national food turned red after the Portuguese brought peppers to Asia.
The Portuguese brought the peppers from Mexico. They are native to the Americas not Europe.
I'm aware of that fact@@frisco9568
Spanish from New Spain, present day Mexico.
@@frisco9568 Bruh we all watched the video, why are you repeating the video when no one said peppers come from Europe?
@@frisco9568He didn’t say they were from Europe, he just said the Portuguese brought them over from Europe 😂
I remember being shocked when I first discovered a couple of years ago that chilli peppers were nonexistent outside the americas pre Columbus!
I mean, I knew from childhood that Corn, Potatos, Tomatos and Tobacco all came from there. but even chillis? I somehow assumed that there have always been variants all over the world. Both African and asian cuisine rely heavily on it. I cannot imagine a world without chilis!
Did u know also tabacco vanilla and cocaine came from there?
@@citrusblast4372On cocaine, it’s the prototype drug that all local anesthetics are derived from, we wouldn’t have local anesthetics!
There were actually variants of peppers that we used before chilli's arrived, in Indonesian the word we have for chilli (cabe) is actually older than chili itself and it used to refer to a type of long pepper
@@luiskp7173 There were various other -caines before the introduction of cocaine.
@@cloroxbleach9222 all chile peppers have their origin in Mexico
Wow. I had no idea that sweet peppers owe their ancestry to chilis. New subscriber. Really interesting channel. Over The Rainbow!
This is so well researched, written and presented. I rarely watch a 32 min. vid front to back. (short span of attention, perhaps) This was so well done.
great content - its always beena amazing to me how chilies transformed so many cuisines so far from their origins
Not sure why you don't have more subscribers. This channel is amazing, great job
My dude! Birds are a CLASS, with thousands of species.
Good video with lots of good information. Thanks for sharing.
Yeah, I said "species" in the colloquial sense and it didn't hit me when I was writing how misleading that is (given the actual meaning of the term). Just bad writing on my part, not an intentional misstatement
Very well researched and presented.
That restaurant is definitely on our list for our trip in January. The jungle curry looked amazing!
Really informative video. I knew that chillies came to India via Portuguese in 16th century along with a lot of other stuff like tomatoes etc which are now an inseparable part of Indian cuisine.
I am from kerala the southern state of India. You analysis is interesting the birds eye chillies grow wild in this part of kerala and is widely usd in chudneys and pickling. We call them 'Kandari'. But when preparing curries kashmiri chillies are commonly used.
What an utterly fantastic video. I loved every second of it, instantly subscribed to your channel.
I would really appreciate if you could add Thai subtitles, so that I can share this gem with my Thai friends.
I will look forward your next video !
Another minor request would be for you to write down on the screen the name of the dishes and the places you are at.
Amazing work! It reminds me to Anthony Bourdain's early videos, with great research, great content and best of all, great food.
Thanks for the interesting history of the awesome chilli.
I'm from Cape Town South Africa which is where we had Portuguese and Dutch merchant ships stop along their routes to the middle east, the British then eventually claimed the territory which is why you then mainly mention Mozambique as the Portuguese waypoint as it remained a Portuguese colony..
I love the Birdseye chilli and had it growing in my yard requiring very little upkeep.
I addicted to this channel!
If you get a chance, visit the Tabasco company in Avery Island, Louisiana. Its a monster pepper farm and factory. They give great tours in beautiful south Louisiana. I think they produce like a 3 million bottles per week.👍
i love the whole peppers ≠ chilies thing
studying old Asian cuisine to find out how they made spicy foods before the introduction of the chili was so enlightening and fun.
there are actually SO many different kinds of pepper that are native to Asia, but they are not chili peppers. it's so nifty. :3
love how much the amazing foods of the "New World" impacted the rest of the globe.
I love this story. When I was a kid, you would see birds eye peppers growing wild all over south Texas. They were often used mixed with vinegar, bottled and found on restaurant tables. It was often used to give a simple spinich receipe more flavor.
It’s strange this vid doesn’t even refer to the birds eye pepper aka the chiltepin, because botanists many say is the original pepper
Same! You can still find tabasco peppers in vinegar on most store shelves here. I keep a bottle of it around for when I make collard/mustard/turnip greens and cornbread.
So truly amazing! Thanks for your intellect and research. I'm blown away
Great episode, Adam. All I know is that I took a tiny bite out of the "Ring of Fire" Thai chili I'm growing and the burn lasted for more than an hour, even after a couple of beers. I've eaten just about every chili pepper available from Thailand to the US, and that has to be one of the hottest I've ever tasted. I'm waiting for the peppers to turn red, hoping for a smokier flavor to balance the heat, but we'll see. Let Daria know that the best way to deal with the peppers in that Jungle Curry is to have a bottle or more of beer standing by, and never drink water to soften the heat. I'm glad you posted this one since it goes well with the history of Southeast Asia I just finished, and the Henry Kissinger volume next, and I'm in the middle of a comprehensive history of China, all of which make mention of the trade routes over the past several millennia. Without chili peppers, it's certain that life would be much more boring, and I have to thank our avian friends.
I grew up in the midwest, and like you, hadn't had hot Chinese food before. When I moved to Seattle, that changed. I ordered something called 5 Vegetable Chicken and when it came, I counted the vegetables. Sure enough, there were five of them, including the red peppers. So I started eating it all. I went through wave after wave of plateauing at higher levels. I finished the dish and when the waiter came I mentioned that it was amazingly hot. They looked at my plate and said, "You ate the peppers! You're not supposed to eat the peppers." That was a revelation right there.
Another time I went to an Indian restaurant and ordered a Vindaloo curry dish. I'd had mild Vindaloo before and tolerated it, so this time I ordered medium. That dish nearly floored me. I broke in a sweat, then had chills and was shivering. The waiter noticed my distress and suggested that I go outside and walk in the heat of the evening and I would soon recover. They were right and I felt better a while later.
Thanks for reading.
It’s really interesting that Spain brought chilies to Europe and they had very little influence in Spain’s cuisine. I’m telling ya, there are no spicy dishes here hahah
Pimenton?
@@higashirinchiah1013 it’s true we have 2 varieties , and one of them is “spicy” , but no one really uses that one that much. I didn’t know what was spicy until I went to Thailand
@@lauracamargo3229 it's more likely the South East Asia's varieties are blow your mind spicy. I guess this part of the world, we pick the spiciest ones to propagate 🤣 and Spain chose the less spicy varieties but both came from similar origin. If you run through most South East Asian recipes, chili is only used in small quantity in comparison to the ridiculously long list and amount herbs used
As an American (with European family) I'm always disappointed by how tame European food is. (Except for the desserts. European desserts are awesome.)
Britain is especially bad - every now and again you'll see videos going around of British people being unable to handle the "hot" offerings of US chains, which most Americans would consider a notch or two above mild.
Then again, you could probably just argue that our tastebuds are fried from putting hot sauce on everything... 😅
Good topic and good research. You could make the voice over less worded though
Wonderfully comprehensive and informative. Well done!
at this point, I just watch your video without caring about context. Love your work as always.
Ps. maybe you should open a membership. I really love to support you guys for making this quality content.
Incredibly kind of you, really appreciate it. Will look into the membership idea- for now, Patreon really keeps us going. That would be the best way to help us if you felt inclined. www.patreon.com/OTRontheroad is the link
Outstanding content coupled with excellent presentation! I can see you being the next Bourdain without his snarky comments.
When I eat a very spicy dish, I thank native american farmers for cultivating chili peppers. Without their skill and instinct, every cuisine wouldn't be as exciting or interesting. Sichuan la zi chicken is an awesome dish. My first memory of loving chili spice was a hot & sour soup that melted my brain. I had boring toned down hot & sour soup hundreds of times in Taiwan and LA. Then one time we went to a place in southern CA that made it extra hot and that got me addicted to spice :)
@@John.Flower.Productionsbullshit
This neatly answers a question I’ve had for a long time. Thanks!
What was your question?
The New World gave and continues giving, so much to the World. Amazing.
Underrated channel for sure. Glad the algorithm blessed me
I'm so surprised this video doesn't have millions of views. Fascinating and brilliantly made!
The question is why in the last 20 years those who couldn't eat chili started to eat more and more spicy food?
(including me)
And as you start to eat chili you keep eating hotter food.
The funny thing is the hot taste was developed in chili to deter mammals. Why on earth we kept eating it after getting burned the first time !?
At least in "western countries" "ethnic food" has generally become more widespread and more culturally acceptable to eat. Thai restaurants, Mexican restaurants, Indian restaurants, etc are all more common then they were in the 90s. Spicey snack food's such as flaming hot Cheetos, Takis, and more are easy to get and expose people to spice at a young age. Now that spicey food is easier to get it is easier to build up a tolerance.
Great question!
✌️
Well, it shows that we humans do not tend to follow nature too much! We consider ourselves 'ingenious' when we go againts nature. Earth would be much relieved (and prospers) the sooner we are gone until the earth itself is no more... which may be soon with what we are doing.
This was a fabulous documentary - great - subscribed - wonderful.
In Mexico he have
Chiltepin
Jalapeño
Serranos
Chilaca
Poblano
Yahualica
De arbol
Puya
Manzano
Habanero
And the list goes on the phenotypes are crazy so much variation in the same strain
Habanero’s and Manzano’s are not chilis.
@@setoman1 in Mexico they are called chile habanero and chile manzano
@@robertopena8645 Botanically, this is incorrect.
@@setoman1incorrect for whom?
@@setoman1 Habenero's are absolutely a kind of chile. It's a spicy pepper of the capsicum family. How is it NOT a chile?
Thank you, TH-cam algorithm. For I have discovered this channel thanks to you, and I immediately subbed.
Great video on chili peppers; I was also blown away by chinese spicy flavours back when I used to live in Beijing. Mad props, man!
In Thai restaurants or street food vendors you might notice some of them has free veggies/sliced cucumber. Eat them while having spicy menu. It'd help you dealing with the spiciness better.
Great video and well-researched topic. Minor concern: The "background" music that's supposed to just supplement the atmosphere is fighting with your narration.
As a teen when I learnt chilis and patotoes are not native to India I was shocked. Still think how our food may taste without chilies and get chills. 😅
We have some native chilli varities and also our food was made with Black pepper !
How does this channel not have 10 million subscribers I just don’t know. Well done!❤
Excellent video, I especially enjoyed the origin of how "pepper" became the English name of the fruit.
A little fun fact: I live in Hungary and the name of Cayenne-pepper was mistranslated because of this. I assume they only saw the powdered form.... well anyway...
Congratulations on your investigations. It´s not usual to see such an informotive video due to your own hard work investigating these questions. As a Portuguese I´m very proud of our historic importance in the world history. One can say that the stomach rules our life and we cannot doubt how food had such importance in our world culture! Thank you for your work!
Let’s appreciate how hard work and insidious research they did on these channel vids. Ngl, not everyone know about this regionly-good places in Thailand at the very beginning.
Thank you for sharing. This is a great video. Truly captivating. My Thai wife enjoyed it as well. Well done.
You deserve more follows, I will push your videos on my Twitter. If it means anything, I just want you to know a rando recognizes your talent.
Very kind. Thanks so much.
This is a very interesing and infor mative video about the history and influence of chili peppers in global cuisine. I really enjoyed how you narrated the story of chili peppers spreading from the time of christopher columbus to the present day. Thank you for sharing this knowledge!
There are a few relevant omissions.
The main route Mexican chili arrived in Asia was through the "Nao de China" that started trade from today's Philippines and Mexico from 1565 onwards.
The red bell pepper is the adaptation of the poblano chile to Spain, that pepper turns sweet just after a few generation (about 2 years)
Spaniards' also found out that some other varieties of chiles would remain hot when grown in their north African colonies (I.e. Morocco and the Canary Islands).
The only Latin-American countries that have chili in their typical food are México, Perú and to a lesser degree Guatemala.
Capsicum Annuum has a Mexican origin and Capsicum
Frutescens origin is Peruvian.
Chesse dip is not Mexican food, it is a US thing you don't find in Mexico unless you're in an US restaurant food chain.
Portugal got access to chili in Africa from the Spanish colonies trough trade and the rest is history, The Portuguese didn't really go inland n Brazil, they remained mostly close to the sea (check the location of most of the city's they founded) and it's really unlikely they had access to the wild chilis from deep in the Amazon.
I learn something new and fascinating every time I watch an OTR video. Thanks!
11:36 As a Mexican it hurts for you to refer to the cheese dip and hard shell quesadilla you had in Bangkok as Mexican cuisine 🤣 that's of course the US take on Mexican inspired flavors but definitely not representative (as in Mac&cheese refered as Italian food). Still of course, nice piece and amazing story but please come to (southern) Mexico, you'll die on the use and varieties of chilis, uses and flavors @OTR
Oh my god that Sichuan dish is my family and I’s favorite dish of all time. Anytime we all fly to our hometown, we go and eat that dish, sometimes multiple days in a row bc we’re addicted and can’t get it in many places in the US.
Cool to see it’s so impactful to you too
Thanks for mentioning Hungary, the country that out of all Europeans probably adopted the plant most strongly in Europe, using it in pretty much every dish and having it's own unique varieties. When people talk about Europe they tend to concentrate on the western countries and tend to overlook places further east.
This is great channel. Thank you for the history
A friend of mine heard the birds were immune to the heat from chilies, so he fed some old chilies flakes to his chickens, which greatly distressed the chickens. It seems that not all birds are entirely immune to the heat from chilies.
Don't tell me that chickens that are fed with Chilly died and cooking them is what the history of Chilly Chicken
What a great history lesson, I really enjoyed the presentation and the detail was great but not overwhelming. And now I'm subscribed!
When i saw OTR noti
Beers = ready
Snack = ready
After i finish ur vids
I need to order jungle curry😂😂
I had such a great time in mexico learning about chili that i had questions about chilis evolution. Thx for your research!
Seeds don't have much capsaicin, it's the white ribs/membranes they are connected to that contain the heat...
In North Africa, we (still) call the Mexican chili pepper (the thin long red one) "felfel barlaabid", which literally translates to "pepper from the land of the Slaves" (since it came from the americas)
Wow- that’s interesting! Had no idea.
but africa was the land of slave too
@@randangbalado there was slavery everywhere, enslaving all sorts of races, but I guess from the African perspective, ships come to take slaves to America, so America must be filled with slaves
@@pardismack They didn't take them, they bought them for weapons and liquor. It was black Africans who went far into the African continent to collect people who they sold as slaves. Unfortunately, slavery still happens in Africa.
It feels ignorant and disrespectful, surely it can be called what it is since you know better. Not everyone here at that time was a slave. If many cultures had slaves why are their areas not also called "Land of Slaves"? We should maintain our consciousness.
This channel is simply incredible
I don't think sambal is Malaysian. The word sambal itself is from the Javanese language.
Thank you! Loved this SO much. Glad you have Daria speaking more on site, too. For the last few years, I've been making western style, fermented Chili sauce from Thai chilies. I'd love to give you-all a bottle as a gift, if you're ever up in the Chiang Mai area. It may be worth noting the names of the spices in Thai; Black Pepper is called "Prick Thai" which suggests it's the original "Prick" (hot spice) and the chilis here all have names concerning their size, shape or origin; "Prick Kee Nue" (mouse poop chili.) Prick Chee Faa (sky pointing chili, which looks like the Chinese ornamental you showed and IS still sold as an ornamental in the West.) Prick Gariang (Karan Chili, used by the 'Hill Tribes' the white version will rip your face off!)
Anyone who ever screams about cultural appropriation needs to watch this. It's not appropriation it's appreciation.
Yes 🙌🏻
Exactly.
And some of those same people smoke tobacco, appropriated from indigenous Americans and turned into a slave based industry for 400 years.
Anyone using that term is already a helpless moron.
To appropriate is to appreciate.
Not always.
Good quality documentary wauw! Tempo music, and ofcourse the content
07:41 according to Javanese manuscripts and inscriptions that date back to the 10th century, Javanese long pepper (Piper retrofracrum) was what used in recipes before the advent of chili pepper.
As for the current chili peppers that we know and love, in Indonesia we're taught in school that they were brought to the Indonesian archipelago in the 15th century by the Portuguese during the expedition of Ferdinand Magellan.
Just like in Thailand, we in Indonesia can't imagine our food without chili peppers. So some might say that it's the only good thing that came from Western colonization 😥
Interesting story. It wouldn't have been from the 15th century- that would be impossible as Magellan didn't start sailing until 1505. In my opinion it's likely that chilis would have arrived from India prior to Magellan's arrival. But as he did participate in the colonization of Malacca...maybe it's possible? Feels like a legend but there's not a zero chance
@@OTRontheroad whoops, sorry, I always get my centuries mixed up. It was supposed to be 16th century. I saw fifteen hundreds and immediately thought 15th century 😅 Our history books at school only mention chilies in passing, but it is said after Magellan died in the Philippines on 27th of April 1521, his ships went on and arrived in Spice Islands (Maluku, eastern Indonesia) on 8 November. But is also said that the Portuguese were already in contact with the islands at least 15 years prior to that. So there was also the possibility that chilies had been brought over by other Portuguese vessels that sailed eastward from Europe to the Spice Islands via the Indian Ocean (as opposed to Magellan’s westward expedition from Spain passing the Pacific). Another less popular theory is that it was the Spanish who brought it to Indonesia, landing in North Sulawesi after the Philippines. It’s all speculations, really.
@@KilanEatsandDrinks I love this kind of speculation. And see my edit to the above post- I did look it up and it does seem like Magellan was at Malacca in 1511 when the Portuguese took over...so....maybe?
@@OTRontheroad IKR? I wouldn’t discount the Spanish theory either. Not directly related with chilies, but in some places in Maluku ‘tomato’ is ‘kamatil’ which is similar to ‘kamatis’ in Tagalog, which is of course a Spanish loan word and ultimately from Nahuatl ‘tomatl’. If only those Spanish forts in eastern Indonesia could talk…
@@KilanEatsandDrinks I was really optimistic about tracing the genetic origin of each strain and figuring out its path that way. But then India f****** everything up by liking the peppers and using all varietals, then it all gets crazy
awesome, can't wait to share it. Totally answered the question I wondered about forever. Very well done!!
I can't imagine life without chillies 😅
This is one of the best sources of information I have ever encountered on the spread of chilis throughout the world. Bravo! Excellent video!
Cheers and thanks!