September 7, 2020

Eat This Podcast: How the chilli conquered China

Hello

And we’re back, with a scorcher.

Szechuan food is hot and spicy, chilli-laden, at least for me. Chilli pepper is firmly established as the most widely used spice around the world, and nowhere more so than in China. And yet, chillies were unknown in China before about 1570. They found favour with ordinary Chinese people extremely rapidly but the ruling classes were not nearly as taken with them. That makes written sources not very useful in the search for chilli’s history in China, although that didn’t deter Professor Brian Dott, of Whitman College in Washington State.

We talked about his new book, The Chile Pepper in China: A Cultural Biography. Take a listen.

All the best

Jeremy