[Sca-cooks] Basque Food/piment d'espelette

[Terry Decker]

I would take this article with a grain of salt.

Chili peppers were found on Columbus's first voyage and are first described 
in the journal entry for Tuesday 15 January.  The author may be confusing 
this with the tale that Queen Isabella was treated with medicine made from 
peppers brought back on the second voyage or is referencing inaccurate 
secondary sources.

IIRC, Grewe speculates on the spread of peppers in Spain, but I have 
encountered no primary evidence of where and why they were grown. 
Personally, I speculate peppers were grown for the kitchen and the pharmacy 
rather than as curiosities, for Columbus states, "There is also much chili, 
which is their pepper, of a kind more valuable than [black] pepper, and none 
of the people eat without it, for they find it very healthful."

Leonard Fuchs, in his 1545 Herbal, identifies these peppers as "Capiscon 
rubeum & nigrum: Roter and brauner Calecutischer Pfeffer, Capsicum oblongis: 
Langer Indianischer Pfeffer, and Capsicon latum: Breyter Indianishcer 
Pfeffer."  Setting aside Fuchs's error of identifying the peppers with the 
Indian subcontinent, it is fairly obvious that capsicum peppers were placed 
in their own genus during their first (known) scientific description rather 
than in the 17th Century as the author describes.

In my opinion, the most accurate statements in the article are probably 
those about Gonzalo Percaztegi, but I would like to know the author's 
sources so that I could verify the information.

Thank you for bringing this little tidbit to my view.

Bear



>I have "The Basque Kitchen" by Gerald Hirigoyen. It mentions a spice called
> piment d'espelette. He says that you can substitute sweet paprika or mild
> chili powder but it won't be quite the same. Piment D'Espelette is a 
> French
> Basque spice common, of coarse, in Espelette.
>
> http://www.fiery-foods.com/dave/espelette1.html
>
> Excerpt:
> Early History
>
> When Columbus brought chile peppers to Europe from the Caribbean after his
> second voyage in 1493, they were first grown in monastery gardens in Spain
> and Portugal as curiosities. But soon the word got out that the pungent 
> pods
> were a reasonable and cheap substitute for black pepper, which was so
> expensive that it had been used as currency in some countries. So the best
> thing about chilies-in addition to their heat and flavor-was that they did
> not have to be imported from India; anyone could grow them as annuals in
> temperate climates.
>
> Carried by Spanish and Portuguese explorers, numerous varieties of chilies
> quickly spread throughout the Mediterranean region and Africa, and the 
> rest
> of the Eastern Hemisphere, where they permanently spiced up world cuisines
> such as those of India, Southeast Asia, and China. However, there were 
> some
> famous national cuisines that were not conquered by chilies; Italians, for
> example, utilized chilies only sparingly. The peperoncinis, for example, 
> are
> used in antipasto, crushed red chilies are a topping for Neapolitan 
> pizzas,
> and hot red chili powder as an ingredient in some pasta sauces. But no one
> region in Italy celebrates chilies. In France, however, chilies were
> established as a tradition in just one region the Nive Valley in the
> southwest, and especially in the village of Espelette to the south. It is
> believed that chilies were introduced into the Nive Valley by Gonzalo
> Percaztegi in 1523, the same year that corn first made its appearance 
> there.
> At first it was thought to be related to black pepper and was even called
> "long black American pepper," and it wasn't until the 17th century that it
> was placed in its own genus.
>
> Lyse
>
>
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