Text 16708, 102 rader
Skriven 2007-06-13 19:48:00 av JOAN MACDIARMID (1:123/140)
     Kommentar till en text av DAVE SACERDOTE
Ärende: BIRD NEST 477 70605
===========================
 Hi, Dave,

 JW> Most hot spices grow in hot climates. Many herbs prefer temperate
 JW> climes. And neither grow naturally in the arctic. Traditional diets
 JW> evolved around that.

 GJ> That is logical, but leads to the question, why don't hot
 GJ> spices grow in temperate climates?   (Actually, that reasoning
 GJ> is faulty, as hot chilies grow perfectly well outside in the
 GJ> garden in my temperate, Mediterranean climate.)

 DS> The question that should be asked is "Why didn't hot spices
 DS> evolve in temperate climates?"  It's true that hot chiles grow
 DS> just fine in temperate zones - I've grown some pretty damn fine
 DS> habaneros - but they're not native to New England.

 Well, chiles and green sweet peppers are
 all one plant group that happened to originate
 in one area and hadn't spread naturally to
 North America. Maybe pure chance that the
 chile side evolved capsaicinoids and found them
 useful as a way to prevent the fruits being
 masticated by mammals (which would render the
 seeds non-germinatable) instead of swallowed
 by birds, which apparently pass at least some
 of the seeds undigested and viable. A chance
 mutation that was retained as useful and maybe
 having no causal connection with climate. Now,
 as I understand it, peppers are also related
 to the nightshade family, and we have at least
 one apparently native form of nightshade.
 Those, however, have other forms of protection,
 being poisonous outright. What I don't know
 is whether some of the local humans (Caribs
 in this case) developed the peppers
 horticulturally from a not-very poisonous
 type of nightshade that tasted good. The
 Incas apparently developed several food
 plants that way, also from nightshade family
 plants, specifically potatoes and tomatoes as I
 vaguely remember. Those guys were good farmers!

 JM>  Horseradish is grown and used in temperate
 JM>  climates, as you well know. It's just a
 JM>  different sort of hot from chiles and black
 JM>  pepper berries.
 JM>
 JM>  Another "hot" ingredient in temperate climate
 JM>  cooking is mustard. Some are hotter than others, of course.

 DS> Is horseradish considered "hot"?  I never knew how to
 DS> categorize it, but I never associated the intense
 DS> vaporous quality of horseradish with heat.

 Well, the zing is sort of a cold "hot"
 to me, and it does pain the mouth a bit.
 I guess I was making the point that Northern
 cooking didn't eschew what "hot" ingredients
 it could get before the New World had been
 explored. Ha! Nice that with chiles, we also
 got tomatoes, as they go together very nicely.
 I wonder if the native Americans had any
 decent edible onions or garlic? Columbus
 might be declared the patron saint of salsa!
 It took the meeting of continents to make it,
 after all.

 DS> Once upon a time when I was a chile wuss, my friend Roger used
 DS> to taunt me by eating whole serrano peppers, knowing that I
 DS> wasn't able to do it.  He stopped doing that after I ate a
 DS> spoonful of freshly-grated horseradish straight up and he tried
 DS> to emulate me.  Heh heh.

 Whoof! Good for you!

 DS> But anyway, I think what Jim and Glen and I were referring to
 DS> was capsaicin specifically.  I would be interested in knowing
 DS> how it came to develop in hot tropical climes and not in
 DS> temperate areas.

 Like I said, probably a chance mutation by the
 plant wherever it was, that gave a benefit to
 the plant, and possible selection of the trait
 by farmers. Note the capsaicin trait didn't
 automatically appear in other geologically
 separated regions that were tropical, like
 Africa, tropical Asia or Australia. Africa
 did get a different hot, Piper nigrens, from
 which we get black  pepper, but that's a
 different kind of hot from a different chemical,
 though I don't know what it is.

 Ha! Maybe I should start researching the
 "History of Hot", though I might find
 someone already did this for his bio
 or agro science thesis project.

 Joan MacDiarmid

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