Most popular articles
Why We Should Love Fast, New, Processed Food. A plea for culinary modernism, a hymn to the virtues of modern food.
Why did Western (or French) High Cuisine appear so suddenly in the mid seventeenth century. My short answer in Scientific American called Birth of the Modern Diet (pdf). A scholarly version in in Petits Propos Culinaires with the title A Kind of Chemistry (pdf).
Why do Mexican moles resemble Indian curries? My answer. The Mexican Kitchen’s Islamic Connection., illustrated by leading Mexican photographer, Nacho (Ignacio) Urquiza.
What was going on in colonial Mexican food? Chiles, Chocolate and Race, an article I wrote with Jeffrey Pilcher.
Were semitas, a bread found on the US-Mexico border, specifically Jewish? No. Semitas, Semitic Bread, and the Search for Community. A longer version, Semitas.
Why desperately seeking authenticity is a hopeless venture.
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Hi Rachel – I admire your work! I am trying to follow the chili pepper from the Old World to its adoption as a key flavoring in Sichuan cuisine — alongside ancient sichuan pepper. How and why it happened…. I have sources on trade, likely trade routes, some cultivation, speculation on its serious culinary adoption in the 19th c …as a migration with chefs from Hunan. etc. But I haven’t found anything ‘definitive’, nor enough detail on the possibilities. I wonder if you have any ideas (i would credit, of course). This is for a grad school paper, not publication! Feel free to ignore this if it’s just beyond your interest or patience!
Many thx, Kate
Kate, Thanks for the vote of confidence. You are taking on one of the great mysteries of food history. And your instinct to look to trade routes has to be right. I have no hidden bibliographic references to offer. And it would be insulting to suggest that you don’t know obvious sources–Fuschia Dunlop and Sucheta Mazumdar. What strikes me more and more as I dig in to culinary history is that cuisines (whole packages of thinking about and making food) shape what we eat. So the chile had to fit into these structures. I suppose that is the way I would think about it. I can’t wait to see what you come up with. Feel free to contact me off list.
Kate – on thing to consider is what food item the chile replaced or replicated. In India (and in Europe)New World chile replaced “pipli” (long pepper) for a whole variety of reasons. Or if people have a pre-existing taste for a flavour then they tend to adopt other similar flavors. Chile added to Sichuan pepper makes would work for instance.
To echo Adam…
According to The Book of Kimchi (published by The Korea Information Service, editors and contributors are all professors)
“Even before red chili pepper was introduced, leaf mustard of a violet color, cockscomb and safflower were used to give kimchi a delightful red color. Koreans put a special value on the color red…”