If you’ve read some of the other articles in the Chiles and Health section of the SuperSite, you’re probably aware of just how contentious the debates have been, especially when chile peppers are accused of causing health problems like cancer and ulcers. They don’t of course, but the debate about the healing properties versus the “damaging” aspects of chile pods …
Panamanian Cookery, 1947
By Dave DeWitt Gladys Graham self-published her cookbook, Tropical Cooking, in the Panama Canal Zone, then a U.S. possession, in 1947. It is a surprisingly comprehensive survey of cooking in the zone with 130 pages of recipes with ingredients ranging from avocado to vulture. She wrote of visiting local markets in her introduction. “Here are counters with avocados, mangos looking …
Curry-Making [Made Complicated]
Curry-Making [Made Complicated] Editor’s Note: I added the extension in the title because that’s exactly what this long-winded, poorly- organized, and overly-complicated demonstration is. But it’s also funny, in a British sort of way. Curry was all the rage in England post-Raj, and many Brits thought that they could spread it to the States. But the culture in the former …
Observations on Paprika, 1844-1897
Compiled by Dave DeWitt “At the entrance of the market was planted a cohort of dealers in Paprika, who had sacks full of this red pepper, so violently pungent, that a little on the point of a knife was enough, to our taste, to spoil a dish, but of which astonishing quantities are eaten by the natives. In the hotels, …
Customs, Cultivations, and Curries of Ceylon, 1860-1891
Observations on the Cuisine of Ceylon, by James Emerson Tennent, 1860 The domestic economy of the great body of the Singhalese, who inhabit Colombo and the other towns of the island, is of the simplest and most inexpensive character. In a climate, whose chief requirement is protection from heat, their dwellings are as little encumbered with furniture as their persons …





