Why is it that we're generally conscious of the fact that Central American chili peppers are an imported addition to European cuisine (and that non-native North American cuisines using them are modern developments), but most people think of them as completely traditional in Asian cuisines?
I like the tone of this thread. Personally I think Chinese people are fucking crazy for using so much dried chili in their food, but I respect their resolution
Probably because they aren't used in nearly as many dishes in Europe as some regions of Asia. In Southern Cinese, Korea and most of SEA, capsaicin is ubiquitous in the cuisine to the point whete it's difficult to imagine what the food was like without it. Oth, it's difficult to think of many European dishes where peppers are prevalent other than Hungarian with paprika.
Camden Gonzalez
Shitty clickbait video
Dylan Wood
I've always wondered this, too.
Andrew Gonzalez
>most people think of them as completely traditional in Asian cuisines 1. Aside from Chinese and maybe Korean/Viet/Thai, peppers aren't inherently a big staple of most other Asian cooking so I don't think it'd be true to lump all Asian cuisines into one. 2. Not sure who you mean by "most people", but even within China, some places would see peppers as out of place in their cuisine. China isn't just one homogenous food culture and different regions use peppers to differing degrees. 3. "Traditional" is pretty vague and can mean anything from 50 years ago to thousands of years ago. I'm sure there are Italians who'd see tomatoes as being traditional to their way of cooking.
Jonathan Scott
>I'm sure there are Italians who'd see tomatoes as being traditional to their way of cooking. Time for all the dumb fuck guidos to get pissed, not realizing they didn't eat tomato's for centuries and they aren't even native to italy
Xavier Richardson
You forgot Malaysia, India, Bangladeshi, Pakistan, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Indonesia... in before "oh but here's a dish from each of those cunts that doesn't use chili" or some other backpedaling. Other than Japan most countries in Asia are not averse to having chilis in some of their foods where appropriate
Ayden Hall
You understand that historically Italy is a fairly new country?
Brandon Williams
Are you actually, clinically retarded? Do you think pre Renaissance Italian cuisine was the same as today. Wew, lad.
Cooper Bailey
He means the geographical designation we now know of as Italy, encompassing all of the former states that are part of its current cultural foundation
Twat
Samuel Brooks
He clearly didn't.
Jace Gutierrez
He clearly did.
A plant can't be native to a nation as a political concept, only the space that nation includes within its borders.
Landon Cox
Italian cuisine as we know it today is relatively new. Retard.
Angel Evans
And I'm sure if this was a thread about Earth cuisine, you'd be autistically screeching about how I don't mention Kazakh or Mayan or Neanderthal food cultures.
Christopher Hill
>mfw all these ignorant eukaryotes think requiring other organisms to survive is native to this section of the primeval sea floor >being born any time in the last 3.7 billion years Look at them, look at them and laugh
Joseph Adams
>>Why is it that we're generally conscious of the fact that Central American chili peppers are an imported addition to European cuisine Because people think of Chinese cuisine (and Chinese culture) as something static that hasn't changed in centuries and millennia, despite many of the most popular Chinese dishes (even the traditional ones) being surprisingly recent inventions. Same as Western cuisine, really.
Leo Morris
>post ignorant flyover drivel >get called out >issue site-wide ban Bit too close to home, I guess? For you, it must be the McChicken
Brandon Ramirez
Deleting and banning won't make you less stupid, cleetus
Ryan Perry
Westerners don't enjoy non-spicy Chinese food. Everything around middle america is sichuan.
Cooper Scott
I always wondered this myself. The best example of this is Chongqing style hot pot. Everyone swears that it is some sort of ancient dish.
In the very specific case of China, I think the reason is that Chinese people don't have the same colonial history that other countries do, So Chinese people don't look at things through the same historical experience. Additionally, China has been isolated from the rest of the world for extended periods of its modern history and China is not as culturally or ethnically diverse as some Western countries. I think another key point is education: Chinese education does not attribute much importance to world history or to the appreciation of cultural diversity.
But I think this does actually happen in the West as well. Ask anyone in Ireland where potatoes come from. I doubt anyone will say Peru. Or ask Swiss people where Cocoa comes from. Ask Swiss people what the origin of the world chocolate is. No one will know the answer.
Dominic Morales
I think about this a lot OP. I guess the warmer (or rather the zones without a real winter) areas embraced the pepper more readily due to growing season and other factors.
John Garcia
>Ireland I had an Irish guy try to tell me the whole WWII pacific theatre didn't happen, so I dunno what their public education is like.
Alexander Morgan
Probably on a similar level as Americans, who seem to think the US Navy single handedly defeated Japan and no Asians actually died in WW2
Oliver Perez
>Ask Swiss people what the origin of the world chocolate is.
Chocolate as we know it was invented by Europeans when coca beans was brought to Europe. The coca beans and the bitter chocolate drink used by native Americans is obviously not european.
Dominic Diaz
That's precisely what I meant, dumbasses.
I meant that Swiss people don't know that the origin of the word chocolate is Aztec and Irish people don't know that potatoes are from Peru, in the same way Chinese people don't know chili is from Central America.
Joseph Allen
>I'm stupid therefore everyone else must be stupid too
Blake Flores
Obviously, the Aztecs weren't mass producing Milky Way bars or chocolate truffles. Nor did they have any concept of bovine milk.
I doubt they were using chili to make Chipotle sauce or potatoes to make french fries but that's not the point of this conversation.
The point is that people aren't aware of the origins of certain dishes and recipes. Chocolate in its modern form may indeed be a European invention but it borrows a lot from indigenous cultures, the word CHOCOLATE itself is of Aztec origin.
Nolan Wilson
>and no Asians actually died in WW2 What Americans think this? Also surely American naval power and technology was what won the war
Lucas Howard
>Choc - au - lait >not a European word I know what you were trying to refer to. But you just proved a little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing. Get your own ducks in a row before you start shouting at clouds.
Nathaniel Lee
I'll take armchair etymology for $100 alex
Michael Powell
I've got another hour to kill before I have to be anywhere, your attempt at damage control would work better if you started range banning every ISP near an ocean
Thomas Smith
It's a romanized loanword from the Nahuatl xocolatl.
Owen Gray
How long does it need to be in the cuisine to be traditional? Chilis were introduced to China like 500 years ago now.
Jason Thompson
They did eat tomatos for centuries. They had them for like 500 years.
Joshua Diaz
did you counter something he said? what a way to project
James Davis
Why is it that conscious of the fact that American potatoes are an imported addition to European cuisine (and that non-native North American cuisines using them are modern developments), but most people think of them as completely traditional in European cuisines?
Colton Sanchez
Italian food uses shitloads of capsicum too but yeah most euro countries just use a lot of potato, corn & tomato courtesy of NA
Aaron Hughes
Italy hasn't been Italy for centuries you dumb fuck
Jeremiah Baker
Because ancient people had wisdom.
Eating peppers are actually retarded because it was evolutionarily designed to cause animals that eat them to have diarrhea so they shit out their seeds along with their liquid shit that will give nourishment to the seed later.
Nathan Lopez
Dumplings are a couple of hundred years old and they usually arent spicy. Chinese people eating spicy is mainly hong kongers. Sichuan spicy is a joke to everyone who ever ate indian.
Colton Morales
except HongKong (cantonese) food barely have any spiciness to them. And within china they are often meme'd on for not being able to handle heat. I agree with sichuan not being all that spicy because they focus on the numbing factor. The spiciest cuisine in china actually comes from Hunan and Guizou provinces.
Liam Ortiz
>and China is not as culturally or ethnically diverse as some Western countries.
Even the Communist party would tell you that that's bullshit, kiddo.
Ethan Myers
Well A, the "ancients" didn't have access to hot peppers and B, capsecin is more of an adaptation to prevent mammals (and only mammals since the compound only affects mammalian nerves) from consuming the peppers and instead leave them for the birds who are totally unaffected and can distribute the seeds farther.
Joseph Wright
I wonder this too.
For example, everyone thinks modern Indian curry is typical of traditional Indian food but until Europeans found the new world none of their cuisine would have been made hot by peppers, they would have used peppercorns to achieve a spice to it which is a completely different kind of heat imo.
I think we normally associate spicey food with all ethnic food so don't consider it unusual in eastern cuisine.
Elijah Myers
Did you know that Asians did not have rice until 1985?
Logan Torres
>What is Spanish cuisine? >inb4 Spain is in Northern Africa