The First Chillies in the Far East

Authors

  • Andrew Dalby Independent Scholar Author

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1558/ppc.31616

Keywords:

capsicum, chilli peppers, migration of food plants, Columbian exchange, Philippines

Abstract

Discussion of the earliest recorded dates for the knowledge and use of chillies in the Far East; evidence for the view that they first reached the Philippines in the late sixteenth century with the Spanish trans-Pacific voyages.

Author Biography

  • Andrew Dalby, Independent Scholar

    Andrew Dalby writes on food history, always working from original sources. He studied at St John’s College, Cambridge, and University College London. He lives in France, grows fruit and makes cider. A part-time PhD at Birkbeck College, London, was his introduction to food history. His dissertation was revised as Siren Feasts (Routledge, 1996), and in the same year he and Sally Grainger published The Classical Cookbook (British Museum Press, 1996). Later food history books include Food in the Ancient World from A to Z (Routledge, 2003), Flavours of Byzantium (Prospect Books, 2003), The Shakespeare 
    Cookbook (with Maureen Dalby: British Museum Press, 2012) and Gifts of the Gods (with Rachel Dalby: Reaktion Books, 2018). He has translated three source texts, all published by Prospect Books: Cato On Farming (1998), Geoponika: Farm Work (2011), and The Treatise of Walter of Bibbesworth (2012).

References

Albalá, Paloma. 2003. ‘Hispanic words of Indoamerican origin in the Philippines.’ Philippine Studies, 51: 125–46.

Alpern, Stanley B. 1992. ‘The European introduction of crops into West Africa in precolonial times.’ History in Africa, 19: 13–43.

Andrews, Jean. 1993. ‘Diffusion of Mesoamerican food complex to southeastern Europe.’ Geographical Review, 83: 194–204.

Dalby, Andrew. Forthcoming. ‘Chilli peppers: the first stage of world conquest.’ In Manuscripts, Plants, and Remedies of the Ancient and Postclassical Mediterranean Worlds, edited by Steven E. Oberhelman. Berlin: De Gruyter.

Dott, Brian R. 2020. The Chile Pepper in China: a cultural biography. New York: Columbia University Press.

Krondl, Michael. 2021. ‘The chile diaspora: unravelling evidence from sixteenth century botanicals.’ In Herbs and Spices: Oxford Food Symposium 2020, edited by Mark McWilliams. London: Prospect Books.

Rouffaer, G. P. Rouffaer, and J. W. Ijzerman, eds. 1915. Willem Lodewycksz: De eerste schipvaart der Nederlanders naar Oost-Indië onder Cornelis de Houtman. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff.

San Buena Ventura, Pedro. 1613. Vocabulario de lengua tagala. Pila.

Smith, Stefan Halikowski. 2015. ‘In the shadow of a pepper-centric historiography: understanding the global diffusion of capsicums in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.’ Journal of Ethnopharmacology, 167: 64–77.

Vocabulario da lingoa de Japam: Com adeclaração em portugues, feito por alguns padres e irmaõs da Companhia de Jesu. 1603. Nagasaki.

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Published

2024-11-21

Issue

PPC 130 (2024)

Section

Invited Essays and Reports

How to Cite

Dalby, Andrew. 2024. “The First Chillies in the Far East”. Petits Propos Culinaires, November, 12-17. https://doi.org/10.1558/ppc.31616.