Pepper and Pepper: Language, Colonial Trade and Spices
Have you ever wondered why green, red and yellow capscicums are called ‘bell peppers’ in North America? And why are some varieties of chillies called “red peppers” ( think Red Hot Chili Peppers - one of my favourite bands growing up)? It's the same reason that Native Americans were called ‘Indians’ , and until today the cricket team from countries around the Caribbean Sea is called the ‘West Indies’!
Christopher Columbus' Great Colonial Error
It's the great colonial error of the Italian navigator Christoper Columbus (1451-1506). He sought sponsorship (yes even in those days, you had to woo your sponsors), from the Catholic Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand of Spain. He wanted to sail westwards and find a new route to the source of precious spices from the Indian subcontinent - black and long pepper being the key ones. He wanted to ‘disrupt’ the monopoly held over the spice trade by the Arab and Venetian merchants in the 1400s (think of Shakespeare’s ‘The Merchant of Venice’ which many of us read in school).
Columbus sailed west in search of ‘black gold’, or black and long peppers and ended up mistaking the Americas for Asia. He also mistook the native chilli plants for pepper, since they have a similar shape and the characteristic pungent, ‘spicy’ kick to food. Chillies were easier to grow, and hence less expensive.
Spicy 'Indian' food
If you can get the same ‘kick’ out of a cheaper spice, would you use it? That is exactly what many communities in the Indian subcontinent did. We welcomed the red chillies that the Portuguese brought to Goa from the Americas (via Europe) into our kitchens, our mortars and our thalis. Some grandmothers even use these rechillies to remove ‘nazaar’ or drishti from their grandchildren. Soon the ‘peppers’ from the West become so infused with the food from the subcontinent, that now most people cannot think of ‘Indian’ food without thinking of spicy, pungent chillies!
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