The history of the chile in world gastronomy

There are few ingredients in the history of humanity that have transformed so many cuisines, crossed so many borders and stirred up so much passion as the chile. Native to Mexico and Central America, domesticated more than 7,000 years ago, the chile is today a fundamental ingredient in the cooking of more than half the world's population. From Korean kimchi to Thai curry, from Tunisian harissa to American Tabasco sauce, the Mexican chile is everywhere.

But its journey from the Mesoamerican milpas to the dishes of Bangkok and Budapest is a fascinating story of exploration, trade, adaptation and obsession that few know in full. This is the history of the chile: the ingredient that changed the flavour of the world.

Origin: Mexico, cradle of heat

The oldest archaeological remains of domesticated chile have been found in the Tehuacán Valley, Puebla, Mexico, dating back between 7,000 and 9,000 years. This makes the chile one of the first crops domesticated in the Americas, even older than corn. The Mesoamerican civilisations did not only use it as food: it was medicine, a unit of exchange, a tribute to the gods and a tool of punishment (disobedient children were forced to inhale smoke from burnt chile).

For the Aztecs, the chile was so important that it had its own deity: the goddess Tlaltecuhtli, associated with the earth and with heat. The markets of Tenochtitlan (the Aztec capital) had entire sections dedicated exclusively to the sale of dried and fresh chiles, with varieties classified by heat level, colour, flavour and culinary use. When Hernán Cortés arrived in Tenochtitlan in 1519, he found a chile classification system as sophisticated as that of French wines.

Bernal Díaz del Castillo, chronicler of the conquest, wrote that "the Indians could not eat without their chile", and described with astonishment the dozens of varieties sold in the markets. The chile was omnipresent: in salsas, in tamales, in chocolate drinks (Aztec chocolate was made with chile, vanilla and achiote, not with sugar), in stews and as a food preservative.

The journey to Europe: Columbus and the confusion with pepper

Christopher Columbus took the first chiles to Spain after his second voyage in 1493. But he made a classification error that persists to this day: he called the chile "pepper", confusing it with the Asian black pepper (Piper nigrum) that Europeans were desperately seeking. They are completely different plants - the chile is a Capsicum, pepper is a Piper - but the name stuck: in English and many European languages, the chile is still called "pepper".

The chile arrived in Spain as a botanical curiosity. The first European crops were planted in Spanish and Portuguese monasteries, where the monks grew it in their medicinal-herb gardens. At first it was not much used in Spanish cooking - Iberian gastronomy already had its own mild heat with paprika - but its medicinal properties were quickly recognised: antiseptic, digestive, analgesic and preservative.

Portugal: the globalising agent

It was Portugal, not Spain, that truly globalised the chile. Portuguese navigators, who maintained trade routes with Africa, India, Southeast Asia and China, took the chile to all these territories between 1500 and 1550. In less than 50 years, the chile went from being an exclusively American ingredient to being cultivated on four continents.

The speed of adoption was extraordinary and unprecedented in the history of food. The chile offered something no Asian or African spice provided: an intense, accessible heat that was easy to grow. While black pepper, clove, cinnamon and nutmeg were expensive and difficult to produce outside their regions of origin, the chile adapted to almost any tropical or subtropical climate, grew fast and produced abundantly.

India: the deepest adoption

India is perhaps the best example of the total integration of the Mexican chile into a foreign cuisine. Before 1500, Indian cooking used black pepper, ginger and mustard as sources of heat. In less than a century after the arrival of the Portuguese chile, the Capsicum had become the most important ingredient in Indian cooking, relegating black pepper to a secondary role.

Today, India is the world's largest producer and consumer of chile, with more than 2 million tonnes a year. The Kashmiri, Guntur, Byadgi, Bhut jolokia and dozens of other varieties are all descendants of seeds that arrived from the Americas 500 years ago. It is impossible to imagine a curry, a vindaloo or a biryani without chile.

China and Southeast Asia: the chile transforms the cuisine

The chile arrived in China via the Portuguese trade routes in Macau (colonised in 1557). From there it spread to Sichuan, Hunan and Yunnan, radically transforming the cuisines of these provinces. Before the chile, Sichuan heat depended exclusively on Sichuan pepper (Zanthoxylum); after the chile, the "ma-la" combination (numbing + spicy) that defines modern Sichuan cooking was born.

In Thailand, the chile arrived via Portuguese trade with Ayutthaya in the 16th century. Before the chile, Thai cooking used pepper and ginger for heat. The chile not only replaced those sources: it created new dishes that are now world icons. Thai pad thai, som tam, green curry and red curry are unthinkable without chile, but they are all creations subsequent to its arrival from the Americas.

Korea adopted the chile in the 17th century and made it the basis of gochujang (fermented chile paste) and chile kimchi, two pillars of present-day Korean gastronomy. Before the American chile, Korean kimchi was not spicy.

Africa: from the coast to the interior

The Portuguese introduced the chile to West and East Africa in the 16th century. The cuisines of Ethiopia (berbere), Morocco (harissa), Nigeria (suya), Mozambique (piri-piri) and South Africa adopted the chile enthusiastically. The piri-piri chile, originating in Mozambique, is actually an American chile adapted to African soil by the Portuguese.

Europe: selective adoption

In Europe, the adoption was slower and more selective. Hungary is the great exception: paprika became the Hungarian national ingredient, fundamental to goulash, cured meats and practically the whole country's cooking. Hungarian paprika is a Capsicum annuum, a direct descendant of the chiles brought by the Ottomans (who in turn had received them from the Portuguese).

Spain developed its own relationship with the chile through paprika: pimentón de la Vera (smoked) and pimentón de Murcia are Capsicum varieties grown in Spain since the 16th century. Although milder than Mexican chiles, they are essential in Spanish cooking: chorizo, pulpo a la gallega, patatas bravas, escabeches.

Italy adopted the peperoncino as an integral part of southern cooking: pasta arrabbiata, Calabrian nduja and sott'olio are unthinkable without chile. France, curiously, barely adopted it, keeping its cooking based on butter, herbs and techniques that do not require heat.

The Scoville scale: measuring the fire

In 1912, the American pharmacist Wilbur Scoville developed a method to measure the heat of chiles: the Scoville scale. It is based on diluting chile extract in sugar water until a panel of tasters no longer detects heat. The results are expressed in Scoville Heat Units (SHU):

• Bell pepper: 0 SHU
• Jalapeño: 2,500-8,000 SHU
• Chile de árbol: 15,000-30,000 SHU
• Cayenne: 30,000-50,000 SHU
• Habanero: 100,000-350,000 SHU
• Carolina Reaper (the spiciest in the world, 2023): 2,200,000 SHU

The race to create the spiciest chile in the world has generated a global subculture of "chilliheads" who grow and consume ever more extreme varieties. It is a race that remains active, with new hybrid varieties breaking records every few years.

The chile today: from Mexico to the world and back

The Mexican chile has completed a fascinating circular journey. It left Mexico 500 years ago, transformed the cuisines of Asia, Africa and Europe, generated thousands of local varieties, and now those varieties are returning to Mexico as "exotic" ingredients: Thai sriracha sauces, Korean gochujang paste, Moroccan harissa and Italian peperoncino are sold in Mexican supermarkets as imported products. It all began with the same Capsicum that the Aztecs domesticated in Puebla millennia ago.

Today, Mexico is still the country with the greatest diversity of chiles in the world, with more than 60 varieties cultivated and documented. The culture of the chile in Mexico goes beyond cooking: it is identity, it is pride, it is a shared language. When a Mexican says "he put a lot of chile on it", they are not only talking about heat: they are talking about intensity, passion, living without fear.

Explore our guide to Mexican chiles to learn about the essential varieties and where to find them in Spain, and discover in our recipes how to use this ingredient that changed the world forever.