[bigheadfred]

Now here is a hot topic.

[Red Badger]

GGG Ping?......................

[Black Agnes]

Ping.

[drbuzzard]

Interesting article. It is amusing to note that extremely tenuous tie in they make to climate change. Of course that is because anything which talks AGW gets to open the federal spigot.

[dangus]

I'm guessing this refers only to Capsicum annuum, (bell, jalapeno, chilli and related peppers) and not to Piper nigrum (black and white pepper) and relatives or Pimenta (pimento, allspice, etc.) species. If so, I find it questionable that Capiscim annuum is so widespread.

[Cletus.D.Yokel]

:: Study co-author Gary P. Nabhan, an ethnobiologist and agroecologist ::

Why, oh why, for the love of gaia, did I get a degree in “chemistry”?

I could have specialized in agro-bio-theo-micro-nuclear-physical-chemistry! Woe is me.

[ansel12]

Thailand, Ireland, and Italy, what the heck did those people eat before hot peppers, potatoes and tomatoes.

[yefragetuwrabrumuy]

This impresses me as an extremely difficult task.

If asked about the origins of cultivated peppers, my first inclination would be South Asia or the Pacific islands. The second guess would be South America.

To start with, they probably assume that domesticated peppers first made their appearance with the Clovis culture, about 13,000 years ago. But a lot of the technologies used then, and later Indian tribes, may have arrived there already developed.

Either from the Pacific islands or South America, such as the Pedra Furada sites in Brazil. Much, much older than Clovis.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pedra_Furada_sites

[Scoutmaster]

Pilgrimage!

[colorado tanker]

I guess I had just assumed chilies originated in several places instead of just one. Makes sense that would be Mexico.

But chilies are so central to some other cuisines, like Thai, Chinese (well, some regions) and India it's hard to imagine what their food was like before them.