chili
chīlli · ají · chili pepper
Cultural layer
Kraig H. Kraft, Cecil H. Brown, Gary P. Nabhan, Eike Luedeling, José de Jesús Luna Ruiz, Geo Coppens d'Eeckenbrugge and colleagues, Multiple lines of evidence for the origin of domesticated chili pepper, Capsicum annuum, in Mexico (PNAS 111(17), 2014)
Indian Food: A Historical Companion (K. T. Achaya, 1994)
Feast: Food of the Islamic World (Anissa Helou, 2018)
Longthroat Memoirs (Yemisi Aribisala, 2016)
Dai-Ja Jang, Kyung Rhan Chung, Hye Jeong Yang, Kang-sung Kim and colleagues, Discussion on the origin of kimchi, representative of Korean unique fermented vegetables (Journal of Ethnic Foods 2(3), 2015)
Route
PendingThe routes are written. They are not yet mapped.
This entry's cultural layer already names where it came from and how it moved. What it does not yet carry is that movement as structure: ordered waypoints with real coordinates, and a mechanism on each leg. Until it does, the layer stays an empty slot rather than a drawn line, because a map built from prose would be a guess with a projection under it.
1 of 409 entries carries a mapped route · nutmeg is the prototype
- Waypoints
Ordered places, each with its kind
- Coordinates
Real positions, with the gazetteer they came from
- Segments
From, to, and the mechanism that moved it
- Confidence
Documented, attributed or contested
- Summary
What the route argues, in a sentence
Names · co-equal, marked by how each one travelled
FoodwayPresent as a living food culture.
- chīlliEndonymNahuatl · Mesoamerica
- ajíEndonymTaíno · Caribbean and South America
- chili pepperMarketEnglish (Columbus's pepper misnomer) · global market
Connections
104 bonds · 95 sourcedMa la, the axis Sichuan cooking is built on.
Read in Yan-Kit's Classic Chinese Cookbook, page 233, Yu-ling's hot and numbing chicken, deriving its heat from chilies and Szechwan peppercorns, and page 202; the cited Classic Food of China was not the book in hand.
Ancho, mulato, and pasilla base.
Read in Los clasicos de la cocina mexicana, page 60, which opens with 250 grams of chile mulato, 125 of pasilla and 125 of ancho; the cited Diccionario Enciclopedico was not the book in hand.
Sambal belacan.
Searched in Sri Owen, Indonesian Regional Food and Cookery, 1999 edition, page 220, sambal terasi, the Javanese name for the relish: bird chillies crushed with grilled shrimp paste.
Xocolatl and mole; the original preparation.
Set in bold capitals in The Flavor Bible: very highly recommended by a large number of the chefs it surveyed.
Read from the entry for chile peppers, in general in the 2008 edition, where lime, juice is set in bold capitals.
Xocolatl, the original Mesoamerican drink.
Set in bold capitals in The Flavor Bible: very highly recommended by a large number of the chefs it surveyed.
Read from the entry for chile peppers, in general in the 2008 edition.
Broad bean fermented with erjingtiao chilli, the Sichuan base.
Set in bold capitals in The Flavor Bible: very highly recommended by a large number of the chefs it surveyed.
Read from the entry for shrimp in the 2008 edition, where chile peppers is set in bold capitals.
Salsa cruda and salsa verde.
Read in Los clasicos de la cocina mexicana, pages 122 and 123, both green salsas built on serrano chillies and chopped fresh coriander, and page 117 for the salsa mexicana; the cited Diccionario Enciclopedico was not the book in hand.
Kelewele, Ghanaian spiced plantain.
Read in Osseo-Asare's A Good Soup Attracts Chairs, 1993, pages 114 to 116, kelewele: ripe plantain cubed, tossed with ground dried ginger and ground red pepper and fried, or with fresh ginger and fresh chilli ground together, the evening snack sold by women in Ghana; the cited Ghana Cookbook was not the copy in hand.
Salsa verde.
Read in Los clasicos de la cocina mexicana, pages 122 and 123, the cooked and the raw green salsa, each half a kilo of tomate verde against three green serranos; the cited Diccionario Enciclopedico was not the book in hand.
One is an ingredient of the other
Chilli is in the yaji.
Confirmed in Kitchen Butterfly, 'The Arewa Kitchen: Specialty Meats (or Suya Plus)' (2017): yaji is a dried spice rub with peppers, garlic, ginger and more.
Jicama con chile y limon.
Sambal andaliman.
Raw mango with chili and salt.
Searched in Dakshin, 1992, page 79, instant mango pickle: raw mango with chilli powder, turmeric, asafoetida and salt, mustard seeds popped over it.
Pipian and mole verde.
Read in Los clasicos de la cocina mexicana, page 20, sikil p'ak, pepitas blended with roast tomato and habanero; page xiii says the Mexica made sauces of pepitas and chilli for fish and game; the cited Diccionario Enciclopedico was not the book in hand.
Score unexamined
The base masala.
Read in Madhur Jaffrey's Indian Cooking, pages 74 and 176, cumin and cayenne mixed into the same spice base; the cited Indian Cookery, BBC 1982, was not the copy in hand.
Capsaicin is lipophilic and works on the TRPV1 receptor, so the usual account is that fat dissolves it away. That account is only partly right: controlled comparisons find full-fat milk no better than fat-free, and casein and whey cut the burn with no fat present at all. A sugared drink did about as well as milk. What coconut milk does is carry the capsaicin through the dish rather than simply quench it, which is why heat in a curry spreads and lingers instead of spiking.
Bushra A. Farah, John E. Hayes and John N. Coupland, The effect of dairy proteins on the oral burn of capsaicin (Journal of Food Science, 2023), with Alissa A. Nolden, Gabrielle Lenart and John E. Hayes, Putting out the fire (Physiology and Behavior 208, 2019)
Read in Punyaratabandhu's Bangkok, 2017, Rice Accompaniments: the coconut curries, beef green curry and 24-hour chicken matsaman curry among them, their chile pastes cooked out in coconut cream.
Sopa de milpa: corn kernels with poblano strips and epazote.
Relocated in Los clasicos de la cocina mexicana, page 28. Esquites are not in this book; the cited Diccionario Enciclopedico was not the book in hand.
Guacamole and salsa.
Read in Los clasicos de la cocina mexicana, page 12, guacamole clasico: avocado, salt, tomato, fresh green serrano chilli and white onion; the cited Diccionario Enciclopedico was not the book in hand.
Curry paste.
Read in Punyaratabandhu's Bangkok, 2017, Basic Recipes: red curry paste (nam phrik kaeng phet), dried chiles pounded with galangal, lemongrass, makrut lime rind and shrimp paste; the beef green curry (kaeng khiao wan nuea), Rice Accompaniments, builds the same way.
Curry paste.
Read in Punyaratabandhu's Bangkok, 2017, Basic Recipes: red curry paste (nam phrik kaeng phet), dried chiles pounded with galangal, lemongrass, makrut lime rind and shrimp paste; the beef green curry (kaeng khiao wan nuea), Rice Accompaniments, builds the same way.
Sambar and chutney.
The tempering: mustard seeds with a halved red chilli.
Searched in Dakshin, 1992, page 6, small onion sambar, vengaya sambar, and page 18, garlic rasam: mustard seeds with a red chilli, halved, in the tempering. The book says red chilli, not dried.
Frijoles.
Read in Los clasicos de la cocina mexicana, page 19, the refried beans for chimichangas mixed with cumin and chipotle. The book writes frijoles without naming the variety; the cited Diccionario Enciclopedico was not the book in hand.
Tom yam and the green curry: the leaves torn in with the chiles.
Read in Punyaratabandhu's Bangkok, 2017, Rice Accompaniments: hot and sour fish soup (tom yam pla), lemongrass, makrut lime leaves and galangal smashed into the stock, with fish sauce, lime juice and bird's eye chiles. Also beef green curry. The curry pastes use makrut lime rind, not the leaf.
Hari chatni.
Read in Madhur Jaffrey's Indian Cooking, page 163, the fresh coriander chutney built on green coriander and a hot green chilli; the cited Indian Cookery, BBC 1982, was not the copy in hand.
One is an ingredient of the other
The chilli is the base of shito, not a partner to it.
Read in Osseo-Asare's A Good Soup Attracts Chairs, 1993, page 90: shito is a hot pepper sauce, served with kenkey and fried fish; the cited Ghana Cookbook was not the copy in hand.
Antojitos.
Read in Los clasicos de la cocina mexicana, page 32, sopa de tortilla garnished with cubed queso fresco and thin rings of chile pasilla; the cited Diccionario Enciclopedico was not the book in hand.
Pelecing kangkung, the Lombok water spinach dressed with shrimp paste, bird chillies and lime.
Searched in Sri Owen, Indonesian Regional Food and Cookery, 1999 edition, page 130, pelecing kangkung: two to six bird chillies in the paste.
Laksa.
Black bean and chilli.
Read in Yan-Kit's Classic Chinese Cookbook, page 129, the black bean paste and the chili going into the wok together, and pages 80 and 152; the cited Classic Food of China was not the book in hand.
Banga soup heat.
Confirmed in Kitchen Butterfly, 'Banga Soup: Love in a Claypot' (2013): four hot chillies, scotch bonnet or habanero, blended with the onions.
Suya and pepper soup.
Nigerian food research
Bengali and North Indian base.
Read in Madhur Jaffrey's Indian Cooking, page 83, salmon bhapey, the fish rubbed with mustard seeds, turmeric, chilli and mustard oil in what the book calls typical Bengali cooking, and page 103; the cited Indian Cookery, BBC 1982, was not the copy in hand.
Achar masala.
Read in Madhur Jaffrey's Indian Cooking, page 168, the cauliflower and white radish pickle seasoned with salt, turmeric and cayenne; the cited Indian Cookery, BBC 1982, was not the copy in hand.
Sambal and sayur asam.
The rawon bumbu.
Searched in Sri Owen, Indonesian Regional Food and Cookery, 1999 edition, page 159, rawon: red chillies in the paste with the kluwek.
Chilli furu.
Read in Yan-Kit's Classic Chinese Cookbook, page 169, white bean curd cheese with chili, and page 248, where the glossary says the white fermented cake often has chili added to it; the cited Classic Food of China was not the book in hand.
Set in bold in The Flavor Bible: recommended by a number of the chefs it surveyed.
Read from the entry for cucumbers in the 2008 edition, where chile peppers: is set in bold.
Set in bold in The Flavor Bible: recommended by a number of the chefs it surveyed.
Read from the entry for crab in the 2008 edition, where cayenne is set in bold.
Set in bold in The Flavor Bible: recommended by a number of the chefs it surveyed.
Read from the entry for kale in the 2008 edition, where red pepper flakes is set in bold.
Doenjang jjigae.
Confirmed in Real Korean Cooking: soybean paste stew with dried anchovies, page 108.
Asaro, the yam porridge.
Read in Aribisala's Longthroat Memoirs, 2016, 'The Snail Tree': yam pottage with lots of pepper and soft plantains; and 'My Mother, I Will Not Eat Rice Today', slabs of boiled yam and pepper stew.
Bean and corn dishes.
Read in Los clasicos de la cocina mexicana, page 28, sopa de milpa, the poblano strips and the chopped epazote going in together, and page 104; the cited Diccionario Enciclopedico was not the book in hand.
Recado rojo and adobo.
Nam jim.
Read in Punyaratabandhu's Bangkok, 2017, Savory Bites: grilled meatballs with spicy sweet-and-sour sauce (luk chin ping), the sauce of dried chiles, palm sugar, tamarind and vinegar.
Paneer tikka and bhurji.
The dry okra: amchoor and cayenne in with the ground cumin and coriander.
Relocated in Madhur Jaffrey's Indian Cooking, page 106. Chaat masala is not in this book; the cited Indian Cookery, BBC 1982, was not the copy in hand.
Score unexamined
Savoury snack seasoning.
Satay marinade.
Sambal.
Karedok, the Sundanese raw salad, kemangi through it and bird chillies in the dressing.
Searched in Sri Owen, Indonesian Regional Food and Cookery, 1999 edition, pages 160 and 161, karedok: kemangi, which most Sundanese cooks use plenty of, with bird chillies, kencur and shrimp paste.
Chilli oil and vinegar dips.
Read in Yan-Kit's Classic Chinese Cookbook, page 176, the dips set out for boiled Northern dumplings are soy sauce, Chinkiang vinegar and hot chili oil, and page 177 repeats them for the sauteed ones; the cited Classic Food of China was not the book in hand.
Set in bold in The Flavor Bible: recommended by a number of the chefs it surveyed.
Read from the entry for papayas in the 2008 edition, where chile peppers is set in bold.
Ogbono soup.
Read in Aribisala's Longthroat Memoirs, 2016, 'A Beautiful Girl Named Ogbono': her heat from fresh and dried Cameroonian peppers; and 'Fish Soups and Love Potions', the creek version with ground hot pepper. She notes in 'A Bowl of Aloof Nigerian Soup' that fieriness is not a characteristic of ogbono soup.
Sambar and poriyal.
Searched in Dakshin, 1992, pages 5 to 7, the sambars: drumsticks among the vegetables, green and red chillies with them.
Garden egg sauce.
Confirmed in Kitchen Butterfly, 'Garden Egg and Ugba Sauce with New Yam' (2015): chilli in the tomato mixture and more to taste.
Peppered pomo, cooked in blended onion and chilli.
Read in Kitchen Butterfly, 'Ideas in Pomo' (2017): the pomo sauce is blended onions and chillies fried in oil. The old note named nkwobi, which is cow foot.
Ugba salad heat.
Confirmed in Kitchen Butterfly, 'Okwuru Ugba (Ugba-Okro Soup)' (2015): ugba with sliced yellow chillies in palm oil.
Bengali condiment.
Set in plain type in The Flavor Bible: suggested by one or more of the chefs it surveyed.
Read from the entry for honey in the 2008 edition, where red pepper flakes is set in plain type.
Set in plain type in The Flavor Bible: suggested by one or more of the chefs it surveyed.
Read from the entry for peanuts and peanut butter in the 2008 edition, where cayenne is set in plain type.
Set in plain type in The Flavor Bible: suggested by one or more of the chefs it surveyed.
Read from the entry for chile peppers, in general in the 2008 edition.
Set in plain type in The Flavor Bible: suggested by one or more of the chefs it surveyed.
Read from the entry for chile peppers, in general in the 2008 edition.
Score unexamined
Set in plain type in The Flavor Bible: suggested by one or more of the chefs it surveyed.
Read from the entry for squid in the 2008 edition, where cayenne is set in plain type.
Set in plain type in The Flavor Bible: suggested by one or more of the chefs it surveyed.
Read from the entry for chile peppers, ancho in the 2008 edition, where cashews is set in plain type.
Score unexamined
Pimenta malagueta.
Read in Manuel Querino, A arte culinária na Bahia, 1928, pages 7 to 13: dried malagueta ground with onion and shrimp and fried in azeite de cheiro for the acaragé sauce, and in the efó, the carurú and the ipetê; page 16, malagueta in the moqueca. Cascudo, also cited: page 130, a good moqueca baiana never without dende, malagueta pepper and coentro, and page 157.
Mini lamb flatbreads topped with labneh and red chilli powder.
Confirmed in The Palestinian Table: mini lamb flatbreads, page 52, topped with labaneh and red chilli powder.
Set in plain type in The Flavor Bible: suggested by one or more of the chefs it surveyed.
Read from the entry for beans, kidney in the 2008 edition.
The pakora batter, red chilli powder through the besan.
Oseani, egusi ground with crayfish, dawadawa and dried pepper.
Read in Aribisala's Longthroat Memoirs, 2016, 'Oseani': roasted egusi ground in the hand mortar with white crayfish, dawadawa or ogiri, and dried ground pepper. She adds, in 'A Bowl of Aloof Nigerian Soup', that pungency is not a distinctive feature of egusi soup.
The stew base.
Confirmed in Kitchen Butterfly, 'Traditional Nigerian Edo Egusi Soup' (2014): une fried in palm oil, and the egusi paste made with blended onion and fresh chillies.
Score unexamined
Confirmed in Historia da Alimentacao no Brasil, volume 1: page 142, tacaca and tucupi seasoned with pepper.
Konkan curries.
Ground into the spice paste.
Searched in Sri Owen, Indonesian Regional Food and Cookery, 1999 edition, page 130, pelecing kangkung: chillies, candlenuts, garlic and shrimp paste crushed together in a mortar.
Dinuguan: chiles added last to a pork stew soured with sukang paombong.
Searched in Memories of Philippine Kitchens, 2012 edition, page 209, dinuguan, the Bulacan pork blood stew: garlic fried golden, onions and tomatoes, then pork belly and innards, then vinegar, sukang paombong, the nipa palm vinegar, poured in and not stirred, the chiles last. The cited 2006 edition was not the copy in hand.
Score unexamined
Sambal goreng krecek beside the gudeg.
Searched in Sri Owen, Indonesian Regional Food and Cookery, 1999 edition, page 145: gudeg is the jackfruit served with opor ayam and sambal goreng krecek over rice.
Mole amarillo and mole de olla, the chayote cooked in a sauce of dried chillies.
Relocated in Los clasicos de la cocina mexicana, page 68, chayote with ancho and guajillo, and page 58, chayote with pasilla. There is no chayote a la mexicana in this book and no jalapeno near it; the cited Diccionario Enciclopedico was not the book in hand.
Sichuan cold dishes.
Score unexamined
Cooking fat in Sahel and savanna dishes.
Set in plain type in The Flavor Bible: suggested by one or more of the chefs it surveyed.
Read from the entry for oil, avocado in the 2008 edition, where chile peppers is set in plain type.
Score unexamined
Sauce heat.
With soaked garri.
Nigerian food research
Soups and stews.
Confirmed in Kitchen Butterfly, 'Traditional Nigerian Edo Egusi Soup' (2014): stockfish with the onion and fresh chilli of the egusi paste.
Amla ka achar.
Karedok, the Sundanese raw salad: kencur with bird chillies in the dressing.
Searched in Sri Owen, Indonesian Regional Food and Cookery, 1999 edition, pages 160 and 161, karedok: kencur with bird chillies, shrimp paste and lime.
Miang kham: sliced bird's eye chiles folded into the leaf.
Read in Punyaratabandhu's Simple Thai Food, 2014, Noshes and Nibbles, leaf-wrapped salad bites, miang kham: cha-phlu leaves, la lot in Vietnamese and wild betel in English, filled with diced lime and its rind, fresh ginger, shallot, peanuts, bird's eye chiles and dried shrimp, and topped with a thick sauce of toasted coconut, lemongrass, galangal, ginger, shrimp paste, palm sugar and fish sauce.
Som tam phonlamai, fruit som tam: in Thailand made with local fruits, guava among them, tossed with bird's eye chile, lime and sugar.
Read in Punyaratabandhu's Simple Thai Food, 2014, Rice Accompaniments: in the green papaya salad, som tam malako, she writes that in Thailand she would make her fruit som tam with local fruits, pineapple, green and semi-ripe mangoes, guava, dragon fruit, pomelo or rose apple; the mixed fruit salad, som tam phonlamai, tosses the fruit with garlic, a bird's eye chile, dried shrimp, peanuts, lime juice and sugar.
Score unexamined
Bonds are drawn from culinary literature and origin-tradition references, tiered by source. Origin means a reference from the place. Witness means the pairing is the place's own and the reference documenting it was written from outside.
The score is cultural weight: how central a pairing is in the tradition that documents it. It is not a prediction of how two materials behave in a formulation and not a measure of chemical affinity. The scale is ordinal, because centrality is a judgement rather than a measurement: 1.0 where the pair is the dish, 0.9 a fixed named form, 0.8 a canonical dish, 0.7 recurrent across many dishes, 0.6 common, 0.5 attested, 0.4 marginal or compound-led.
Each score is set against a named dish and carries that dish in its note. Where a score has not been examined it says so, because an inherited figure and a researched one should not look alike.
The dish is named by a reader who knows the cuisine and cites a source appropriate to it. It has not yet been confirmed inside that source page by page, so a note records what supports a score rather than what has been checked in the book.
Studio Culinar-E, "chili", Pantry Archive, Studio Monk-E, 2026. https://studioculinar-e.com/archive/chili
/archive/chili
Bonds are tiered by source, origin-tradition references first.