The Taming of the Wild Chile: Part 2, Pre-Columbian Chile Customs and Kitchens

Fiery Foods Manager Chile History Leave a Comment

by Dave DeWitt and  Nancy Gerlach Recipes:    Chicken in Red Pipian Sauce                  Tamales Negros                  Tlaloc-Chile  Stew   Chiles were the major spice of the New World and played a role similar to that of black pepper in the Old World; ancient New World cultures from Mexico to South America combined the pungent pods …

The Taming of the Wild Chile: Part 1, The Tolerated Weed

Fiery Foods Manager Chile History Leave a Comment

  by Dave DeWitt and Nancy Gerlach        Recipes:         Corn and Potatoes with Two Chiles       Papas con Tomates       Squash Soup with Chile Sauce     “The fruit [of the Peruvian Uchu chile] is as indispensable to the natives as salt to the whites.” ‑‑Friedrich Alexander von Humboldt, 1814 For more than 10,000 years, mankind has been …

Chiles and Chocolate

Chiles and Chocolate

Fiery Foods Manager Chile History, Sweet Heat Leave a Comment

by Dave DeWitt The culinary mating of hot chiles and chocolate was unforgettably revealed to me in the mercado in Oaxaca, where the molinos–grinding mills–in adjacent stalls were processing cacao beans in one stall and mole paste with chiles in the other. In this ancient city, I had this sudden epiphany that, in prehistoric times, ancient cooks would have naturally …

The Question of Origin-Controlled Chiles

Fiery Foods Manager Chile History Leave a Comment

  by Dave DeWitt, Associate Professor (Adjunct Faculty), Department ofAgricultural Economics and Agricultural Business, New Mexico State University In July, 2004, Mexico’s National Council of Chile Producers decided to pursue the origin-control of Mexican chile varieties in order to fight competition from other countries. “We are going to work on getting designation of origin for our chiles because there are …

The Portuguese Piri-Piri Expedition

Fiery Foods Manager Chile History, Europe, Making Salsa and Hot Sauce Leave a Comment

By Blaise Lawrence    Recipes: Molho de Piri-Piri Caldo Verde Roasted Pork Piri-Piri Cataplana de Pescador (Fisherman’s Cataplana) Frango Piri-Piri (Piri-Piri Chicken) It all began right after Christmas when my wife Melloney told me what she had done. “We’re going on holiday to Portugal, Blaise. I’ve booked everything–all you have to do is supply the spending money.” Now that was …