The rise Ottoman Empire blocked the traditional routes to the spice islands, and the race to secure the black pepper pods was in full swing. By the middle ages, these humble pods had grown to not only spice soups and meat but to pay rent and taxes.
In 1492, an ambitious Christopher Columbus set sail in search of India and headed west. After months of sailing, he dropped anchor offshore South America. Here, as anticipated, he did not find the pepper pod but found another plant that would dethrone pepper forever.
The plant was the chilli. A member of the nightshade family under the genus Capsicum, chillies are native to the continent of South America. Of a total of 25 species of capsicum, only five are cultivated. And in South America, people have been doing so for thousands of years.
Linda Perry, a postdoctoral fellow in archaeobiology at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum, discovered starch grains found in chillies on grinding stones. In a paper, she opined that, in Ecuador, domesticated chillies were used 6250 years ago.
The variations of the plant are also a thing of wonder. Paul Bosland, the director of the Chile Pepper Institute in New Mexico State University, said:
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