Chilli Anyone?

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**J.Black**

It's an interesting one... Most people you come across will believe that the Irish/English/Scottish/Welsh are actually one group -British.

If you come from one of the sub-groups, you will believe that the others are infidels who should be purged from our lands with fire and big pointy sticks.

Back OT; i honestly believe there are some elements of English/British cooking in Chili. Not just the cooking times. The fact that the oldest Chili recipes i can find have their weights in pounds and ounces is a bit of a giveaway.

**Frazzled**

J.Black wrote:

Back OT; i honestly believe there are some elements of English/British cooking in Chili. Not just the cooking times. The fact that the oldest Chili recipes i can find have their weights in pounds and ounces is a bit of a giveaway.

Well if by nothing else, you have me on the english weights. Oh wait, those are AMURICAN WEIGHTS! WE don't cotton to no sissie boy ferrener weights.

(Texans never admit defeat)

**Necros**

J.Black wrote:What?! You're saying that the average American identifies more with the French than the British?

I think at one time maybe, but we sent them all to Canada.

**J.Black**

*dies under weight of cheaply imported novelty Stetson*

**Platuan4th**

Necros wrote:
J.Black wrote:What?! You're saying that the average American identifies more with the French than the British?

I think at one time maybe, but we sent them all to Canada.

Then Canada sent about half back to the Louisiana swamps.

**Albatross**

Actually Americans of English descent are estimated to make up around 40% of the population of the USA. But for some reason, people seem to prefer to say 'oh, I'm Irish'. You know, the type of people who go around wearing green jester's hats and drinking pints of Guiness on St. Patrick's Day - who have never even BEEN to Ireland.
Interesting fact: Both Barack Obama and Hilary Clinton are of English descent.
I reckon Chilli could be traced back to Curry, imported by British colonists.

**Frazzled**

Albatross wrote:
I reckon Chilli could be traced back to Curry, imported by British colonists.

You're so godawful wrong its not funny-blasphemer!
Chili has you know, chilis in it. They're native here ya know.

**reds8n**

Yeah, I'd have to sat the South American influence here is gonna be a much bigger factor than anything imported from Britian/India.

**Kilkrazy**

I thought chilli was Mexican (same as tomatoes and chocolate.)

**reds8n**

..wiki time....

Chili peppers have been a part of the human diet in the Americas since at least 7500 BC. There is archaeological evidence at sites located in southwestern Ecuador that chili peppers were domesticated more than 6000 years ago,[2][3] and is one of the first cultivated crops in the Americas that is self-pollinating.

Chili peppers were domesticated at least in different parts of South and Central America.[4]

Christopher Columbus was one of the first Europeans to encounter them (in the Caribbean), and called them "peppers" because of their similarity in taste (though not in appearance) with the Old World black peppers of the Piper genus.

Chilies were cultivated around the globe after Columbus.[5][6] Diego Álvarez Chanca, a physician on Columbus' second voyage to the West Indies in 1493, brought the first chili peppers to Spain, and first wrote about their medicinal effects in 1494.

From Mexico, at the time the Spanish colony that controlled commerce with Asia, chili peppers spread rapidly into the Philippines and then to India, China, Korea and Japan. They were quickly incorporated into the local cuisines.

An alternate sequence for chili peppers' spread has the Portuguese getting the pepper from Spain, and thence to India, as described by Lizzie Collingham in her book Curry.[7] Collingham states in her book that the chili pepper figures heavily in the cuisine of the Goan region of India, which was the site of a Portuguese colony (e.g. vindaloo, an Indian interpretation of a Portuguese dish). Collingham also describes the journey of chili peppers from India, through Central Asia and Turkey, to Hungary, where it became the national spice in the form of paprika.

There are speculations about pre-Columbian chili peppers in Europe. In an archaeological dig in the block of St. Botulf in Lund, archaeologists found a Capsicum frutescens in a layer dating to the 13th century. Hjelmqvist says that Capsicum was described by the Greek Theophrastus (370-286 BC). He mentions other ancient sources. The Roman poet Martialis (around the 1st century) described "Piper crudum" (raw pepper) to be long and containing seeds. The description of the plants does not fit black pepper (Piper nigrum) but does fit that of long pepper.[8]

**Albatross**

So it COULD be an Indian thing, just not a British thing?

**reds8n**

err..well.....that reads to me that chilis started being put in curries after the discovery of SA..so in fact chili influenced curries.

Unless you're putting forward some ancient and hitherto unsuspected India discovered South America idea... ?

**Frazzled**

Redy is correct.
No it had nothing to do with India. The closest India came to the equation was when Columbus landed, pronounced "Greetings my Indian brothers. Whats with the feathers?"

**mattyrm**

I fething love chilli. Its probably my favourite thing to eat!

**Blarglord**

I love chili, especially made with Deer. And it HAS to be spicy. One thing though, if there are going to be tomatos in it it has to be small pieces. I had some and the person who made it put like whole stewed tomatoes in it, was like eating chili with the occasional stewed slug in it.