"Bird Pepper" Illustration, 1858

The Great Chile Pepper Health Debate

Dave DeWitt Chiles and Health Leave a Comment

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 …

Cover of Tropical Cooking

Panamanian Cookery, 1947

Dave DeWitt Mexico and Central America Leave a Comment

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 …

Officers by John Burke, 1879

Curry-Making [Made Complicated]

Kelli Bergthold India Leave a Comment

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 …

Old Map of Ceylon, Now Sri Lanka

Customs, Cultivations, and Curries of Ceylon, 1860-1891

Dave DeWitt India Leave a Comment

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 …