Chile is exciting. It's a food, a spice, a medicinal plant and an ornamental all rolled into one. The history of chiles is pretty spicy, too. According to an article in the Atlanta-Journal Constitution, archaeologists have discovered a row of domesticated chile peppers growing in a 1,400-year-old Salvadoran village that was preserved in a blanket of volcanic ash.
University of Colorado anthropologist Payson Sheets reported the row of 6-foot-high chile plants -- the oldest unearthed in the Americas -- amid clusters of corn, beans and agave, which speaks volumes about the state of agriculture in Central America eight centuries before Columbus reached the New World. Sheets said the discoveries in Ceren, El Salvador, show that farmers of the time used drainage ditches and staggered their crops to guard against pests and plant diseases.
Today's modern farmers are working hard to meet the growing demand. In 1996, the U.S. fiery foods market was a $1.2 billion yearly industry. Since then, demand has grown 4 to 8 percent annually.
A 1994 report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Economic Research Service indicates that Americans consumed 6.2 pounds of chile peppers per capita, an increase of 88 percent over 1980 figures. In fact, people in the United States consumer more chile peppers each year than asparagus, cauliflower, bell peppers and green peas.
So, Why the Hot Stuff America?
As publisher and editor of Fiery Foods Magazine and chile connoisseur, Dave DeWitt is frequently asked why the "hot stuff" has been so widely accepted in the United States. DeWitt kept track of the reasons for this phenomenon. Some reasons include:
- Ethnic diversity. Immigration patterns have changed and now feature new
citizens who bring hot and spicy ingredients and cuisines from Asia, Latin
America and the Caribbean.
- Americans are more knowledgeable now and realize that most chiles and
spicy foods won't hurt them.
- Increasing interest in the hobbies of cooking and traveling.
- The large number of ethnic and hot and spicy cookbooks published since
1978, literally hundreds of them.
- The increasing availability of chiles and fiery foods in mainstream
locations, such as supermarkets.
- The publicity generated by the constant media attention. The recent
National Fiery Foods Show in Albuquerque, N.M., generated more than 5,000
column inches of coverage in U.S. newspapers.
- Trade and consumer shows and festivals featuring chiles and fiery foods.
 |
