Did you know there was NO spicy (capsicum-based) food outside the Americas prior to Columbus?

[AZJonnie]

I hate to give CC credit for anything, but it's actually really interesting thing that I just learned. Pretty much every hot pepper you know of (and this even includes bell peppers) was native to Central and South America, and basically unknown in Europe, Africa, and Asia, prior to a Columbus trip the Caribbean.

Apparently, around 1492 Columbus encountered a trade in various chilis/peppers cultivars that had gone on for 1000+ years in New World, and he brought back the Chiltepin pepper plant from that trip, apparently believing it was the valuable spice black pepper (or something very close).

Turns out wild chiltepin plant is now recognized as the original plant from whence ALL of the hot but not-super-spicy peppers we know of today (such as bell pepper, jalapeno, serrano, ancho, gaujillo, etc., as opposed to Habanero, Scotch Bonnet, Ghost Peppers, which originated from a different Amazonian plant) came from. All these other chilis were created from Chiltepin in Mexico and Central America over 2-3 thousand years, as a result of purposeful and selective breeding, with farmers turning them into the chilis we know today.

CC bringing it back to the Old World led to Portuguese traders circa 1500 making trips to the Gulf/Caribbean region to bring back other plumper, juicier varieties (not Jalapenos and Serranos, but something along those lines i.e. simpler, smaller-fruited varieties, not Chiltepin itself). These then diverged into completely new regional forms across Asia via Portuguese trade. Asian farmers essentially re-domesticated the peppers independently once they arrived, selecting for traits that suited their own cuisines and climates:

* Bird's eye chili (C. annuum or C. frutescens) in Southeast Asia — small, thin, intensely hot, developed through local selection in Thailand, Vietnam, and surrounding regions after Portuguese introduction

* Indian varieties like Kashmiri, Guntur, and Byadagi — bred for color, heat level, and drying qualities by Indian farmers over just a few generations

* Korean gochugaru — developed from introduced peppers into a distinctly mild, fruity variety suited to kimchi fermentation

* Chinese varieties including the Sichuan facing heaven pepper — all post-1500 developments

So in short: Asia got the raw genetic material from early post-Columbus trade, then developed its own distinct pepper cultures independently — bird's eye chili is essentially an Asian creation built on American raw material, just like Korean kimchi heat or Indian curry heat are entirely post-1500 inventions built on the same foundation.

I had NO IDEA that the reason a lot of Asian food is capsicum-based spicy can be directly traced back to a voyage of Christopher Columbus, or even that it was never 'a thing there' until after 1500.