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Historically Hot Spices
Old World vs. New Cuisines
To know what gives hot spices that characteristic heat, or piquancy, a definition of spices in general is required. A definition of spice is any of the various aromatic vegetables that are used to season and flavor foods to make them more interesting. Of course, humans are the only animal species that cooks their food, and then season that food with spices.The intense flavors of these spices comes from the oils contained within the vegetable products. Spices create a hot, or burning sensation in the mouth. Many lovers of hot foods even claim a "high" or adrenalin rush when eating spicy foods. And there is evidence that they aid in digestion by fighting off bacteria in the body. For hundreds of years, a very small number of of these spices provided all of the piquancy to "kick up" the flavor in food in the Old World. In Europe, Africa, and Asia, the spices used were black pepper, ginger, mustard, and a few others, were the extent of all hot spices. In the New World, a single chile plant provided more piquant flavor than any other spice up to that time. And that plant was the chile. It provided ancient people with a powerful burning sensation never felt before. Once the New World was discovered, and the chile plant began to move across the world, it replaced black pepper as the hottest spice. No spice came close to the piquancy of the new chile, but their are several spices considered more "pungent" than piquant. Some examples of these are wasabi, grains of paradise, horseradish, Sichuan peppercorns, and radishes. Today, although chiles are popular throughout the New World and Latin America, people from some parts of the United States seem to enjoy the most intense heat anywhere. Americans seem to crave that burn, to the point of taking it to higher and higher levels of intensity. Sauces made from the hottest chiles, then concentrated to "hotter than hot" pastes, are popping up in markets everywhere, and Americans are buying these products in waves. The world's hottest spices have yet to reach their peak in popularity throughout the world, as more and more culinary ideas come from the use of various spices and combinations of spices every day. This promises to deliver extreme excitement to food for many more years to come. It also promises newer developments in hot spices and the technology behind it for the future.
More On How Hot Spices Have Changed the World
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