[Sca-cooks] Hot Peppers

[lilinah at earthlink.net]

Irmele asked:
>Question: If capsicum peppers are New World, what were people in
>southern Asia using to make their food hot?

Ginger, garlic, a wide variety of peppers (not capsicums)...

Try eating a raw garlic clove if you don't think garlic can be pedas
(spicy hot).
Try using too much ginger and see if that isn't also pedas. Of
course, the dried stuff from the supermarket is often rather stale,
so it often doesn't add much bite, but the powdered stuff i buy at
Whole Foods and Lhasak Karnak is pretty powerful.

Phlip responded:
>...secondly, there are quite
>a few spices and herbs which add hotness to foods, beyond capsicum peppers.
>Try, galingale, wasabi, horseradish, other radishes, long pepper, various
>peppercorns, ginger, all sorts of stuff.

I lived in Indonesia for several years, where lots of galangal is
used, and i have cooked a lot of Indonesian food. And i eat and used
to cook a lot of Thai food, which also uses lots of galangal.
Galangal isn't hot. I've eaten it fresh and dried. It has a somewhat
resinous flavor, but it isn't hot. Unless Phlip's and my taste buds
are so very different that it tastes hot to her, but not to me.

Bear wrote:
>Szechuan pepper (zyanthoxylum  simulans) is native to Southeast Asia.  It
>has a small reddish berry-like fruit which is very aromatic.  It is not a
>capsicum.
>
>Of course, there is the question of whether or not Szechuan pepper was being
>used to spice foods.  Probably, but I haven't seen positive evidence of its
>use.

And it has several relatives throughout Southeast Asia. I don't know
about "SCA period", but they are all much used in food in the last
couple hundred years. There's one commonly used in Batak food (the
Bataks live in North Sumatra) called andalimon (pronounced
ad-dah-lee-mone) that is used a great deal with pork, for example.

Johnnae llyn Lewis   Johnna Holloway wrote:
>There's also Long Pepper.
>Both Piper longum and Piper Nigrum
>were being grown in Asia and traded
>throughout the various regions.

And cubebs, which were known to some as Java peppers...

Phlip wrote:
>----- Original Message -----
>From: "Paul D. Buell" To: "Phlip" <phlip at 99main.com>
>Sent: Saturday, April 19, 2003 10:28 PM
>
>
>>  Things like smart weed and other plants that taste "hot." Also spices such
>  > as turmeric and cloves, that actually are.

Again, i ate plenty of fresh turmeric in Indonesia, and it is also
commonly used in jamu, Indonesian "herbal" medicine, which i also
used. In small quantities its flavor is subtle and it mostly adds
color. In large quantities turmeric can be extremely bitter, but it
never seemed hot to me. Unless again, i'm either insensitive or Paul
Buell is very sensitive to it...

Anahita