Chile Pepper History

Have you seen the Google Doodle today Here is Goodle Doodle of Wilbur Scoville and peppers

Chile peppers are native to South and Central America. They were introduced to South Asia in the 1500s and have come to dominate the world spice trade. Few could have imagined the impact of Columbus' discovery of a spice so pungent that it rivaled the better known black pepper native to South Asia. India is now the largest producer of chillies in the world. MORE

Henry Hobhouse writes in Seeds of Change,"The starting point for the European expansion out of the Mediterranean and the Atlantic continental shelf had nothing to do with,say, religion or the rise of capitalism-but it had a great deal to do with pepper. The Americas were discovered as a byproduct in the search for pepper" (Hobhouse 1985:xi). 

Black pepper is native to South India. The taste of black pepper comes from a slightly different chemical, piperine to that of fresh peppers, capsaicin. Pepper can be traced back to India almost as early as 2000 BCE! Pepper was once used as commodity money and it was not out of place to hear it referred to as 'black gold'. 

We wanted other sources of pepper, so we would not be dependent on the INdian sources. So off went the exploeres like Columbus..and this is what they came up with

Cayenne peppers named after  Cayenne in French Guiana.

Other places pepper is grown is Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam. Vietnam is the biggest exporter!

 And out of that search for pepper came the foods of the Columbian Exchange-corn, potatoes, beans, tomatoes, chocolate,and so on-that revolutionized the diet, economy, social structure, and politics of the entire world (Viola and Margolis 1991).

And in Wiki, good description of two possible routes. Think we are going to have to do our own map..

But once again fits with 'most crops are now grown for export on the other side of the world from where first cultivated'..

Where our peppers come from and EU standards for entry

Should Peppers be classed as fruit?..we tend to think of them as vegetables..

 Yes