[Sca-cooks] Spanish Pepper?

[Johnna Holloway]

I would have asked for the documentation at Pennsic. What was the  
contestant using or relying upon?
Where was he/she getting her "facts"? Was the contestant mistaking  
long pepper for being a Spanish pepper?
(That was after all the pepper of the Romans.)

The best books on the subject of Capiscums in my opinion are those by  
Jean Andrews. She has written The Pepper Trail: History and Recipes  
from Around the World and Peppers: The Domesticated Capsicums, New  
Edition.

For a good source online try the Encyclopedia of Food and Culture

http://www.enotes.com/food-encyclopedia/chili-peppers

Johnnae

On Sep 13, 2011, at 8:11 PM, Honour Horne-Jaruk wrote:

>
> Respected friends:
> At my annual "siege cooking" contest at Pennsic this year, one of  
> the contestants included dishes spiced with "Spanish pepper" - a  
> Capsicum pepper, not a Piper species- which she insisted went back  
> to Roman times and was ironclad-documentable to our time period.
> I said I didn't agree and refused those dishes entry. The  
> contestants were very upset with me.
> I must preface by saying all new world spices were forbidden because  
> I'm allergic/hypersensitive to them, and Capsicum peppers are high  
> on that list.
> However, I now beg the Collected Wisdom of sca-cooks to help me  
> figure out why my contestant thought Capsicum peppers were around in  
> Roman times. Is there some kind of Piper which was grown in Spain by  
> the Romans, or is the whole thing out of whack, or what?