Did the hot peppers originate in India or in south America ?+ who exported THEM to whos country ?
You’re right, both parts of the world, (and many more!) love the chilly pepper down to worship. I read a lot about peppers in general, when I started using them more in cooking. Hot chillis and sweet bell peppers are members of the Capsicum family of plants, which are indigenous to South America. Capsicums are members of the Solanaceae family, which includes the potato, eggplant or bringal, tomato and tobacco plants. The early Spaniards and Portuguese explorers named them ‘peppers’ when they discovered that the natives of South America used this fiery spice to flavour their food. The spice was obtained by crushing dried chillis into a course powder, and because of the similarity of burn to the black pepper used in Europe, the explorers christened it “Pepper”. One explanation of the origin of the word capsicum comes from the Greek verb ‘kapto’ which means to bite or to swallow hungrily, and could refer to the biting sensation of the hot chilli when consumed. The Oxford English dictionar
