[CH] Origin of Chile
Gary Allen (g_allen@culinary.edu)
Thu, 08 Mar 2001 13:18:17 -0500
From: "Louis Cohen" <louiscohen@home.com>
>I suspect that the chile had reached the Caribbean
>by the time Columbus got there - certainly it had reached
>Mexico when CortTs got there.
You're right on both counts.
Columbus noted, in his journal, on 15 January 1493: "...tambie'n ay
mucho axi', qu'es su pimienta, de'lla que vale mas que pimienta, y
toda la gente no come sin ella, que la halla muy sana; pue'dense
gargar cincuenta caravelas cada an~o en aquella Espan~o
Roughly translated, "...there is much Axi-- their pepper, much
stronger than [our] pepper, and everyone refuses to eat without it,
for they find it very healthful; in Hispaniola, it's possible to fill
fifty caravels each year with it." Axi(or Aji) is a
All the contemporary accounts of the Cortes expedition (Fra. Sahagun,
Bernal Diaz, an anonymous book "by The Anonymous Conqueror, A
Companion of Hernan Corte's," as well as Cortes' five--very
lengthy--official letters to Spain) mention chiles
*Source: Cristo'bal Colo'n: _Textos y Documentos Completos_, edited
by Consuelo Varela (Madrid: Alianza Editorial, 1992) 198
(sorry for the primitive attempt to indicate accent marks)
Gary