What was Indian food like before the arrival of the chili pepper from the Americas?
One of the things associated with Indian cuisine is heat from chili peppers. Yet, chili peppers can only have been introduced to Asia from their Central and South American homeland after the Spanish conquests of the 1500s.
What was Indian food like before this time? Did heat come from elsewhere or were Indian people eating bland, boring food? Or have I got my food history completely back to front?
Best Answer
Hardly - pepper was exported from India before chillis were introduced. Some linguistic subgroups still use it in preference to chillis, and certain dishes use it in preference to (or in addition to) chillies.
Ginger's also native (or at least an early import) to India (and while not always used in 'traditional' cooking), I do believe that garlic and ginger were as well.
Many other spices - one of the cinnamon varieties, cardamom and quite a few other spices were native.
While fairly well known, chillis aren't essential to cooking.
Oddly enough, the 'source' I used to try to reverse engineer what are 'native' and what aren't is the traditional funeral anniversary or 'thevasam' menu. While essentially vegetarian, it would use mostly native produce and spices. You can find an example here, though specifics tend to differ with cultural groups or even families
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Quick Answer about "What was Indian food like before the arrival of the chili pepper from the Americas?"
cumin, coriander, black pepper, nutmeg, garlic, shallots, ginger, turmeric, star anise, cinnamon, cardamom, daun salam leaves etc were/are all present in India. Some or all of these could have travelled or have been present in India before chilli.What did Indians eat before colonization?
Before the colonization of North America, our ancestors were healthy and strong. They led active lives and subsisted on a diet of corn, beans, squash, berries, greens, wild rice, fruits, nuts, seeds and game that provided complete and balanced nutrition specifically fitted for people in their region.What was ancient Indian food?
The ancient Indians ate a diet of mostly wheat, barley, vegetables, fruits (Indian dates, mangoes, and berries), meats (cow, sheep and goats), and dairy products. Archeologists have found fishing nets and hooks in the ruins of early Indian civilizations, showing that they also liked to catch and eat fish.Was there spicy food before the Columbian Exchange?
There really was no spicy food in the world before the Columbian Exchange. Denver Nicks, author of Hot Sauce Nation (2016): Before the Columbian Exchange, there were no chilies outside of the Americas. Which is to say, when Christopher Columbus set sail for India in 1492, Indian food wasn't spicy.Did India have chili originally?
I found it very interesting to know that the red chilies that are very often attributed to Indian cuisine, did not actually originate in India. Red chilies originated in Mexico and were brought to India by Portuguese traders. Now India tops in the cultivation of dry red chili peppers.How Chilli Came To India | History Of Chilli | Foodie Trivia | The Foodie
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Answer 2
The recipe 'thevasam' in the link is authentic ( but regional ) pre-columbian exchange cuisine, made with ingredients from species largely native to the indo-malayan ecoregion, and is pretty much reflective of Indian cuisine before the columbian exchange.
I study crop dispersal, as I had an agricultural background from South India.
Other heat giving ingredients would include Xanthoxylum spp. (timur) - relatives of sichuan pepper, long pepper, roasted garlic, ginger, mustard, cinnamon, cloves - all native or widespread in South and South-East Asia well before the columbian exchange.
Answer 3
There are evidence of the use of chili pepper in Asia centuries before the Columbian Exchange.
The thirteenth century stone inscriptions from the Bagan period of Myanmar (formerly Burma) documented the use of chili pepper as either donation or payment towards the cost the construction of its many pagodas.
Farther to the east, Korean researchers (Yang et al., 2017) also concluded that it would be genetically impossible for Mexican chili (aji) to evolve into Korean red peppers just in the time frame in the historical misconceptions that “Red peppers (chilies) were introduced to the country through the Japanese invasions of 1592–1599.”
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