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Chilies to Chocolate: Food the Americas Gave the World
Columbus stumbled upon the New World while seeking the riches of the orient, yet native peoples of the Americas already held riches beyond his knowing. From maize to potatoes to native beans, a variety of crops unfamiliar to Europeans were cultivated by indigenous peoples of the Americas, with other foods like chilies and chocolate on hand to make diets all the more interesting (even when used in combination, as aficionados of molé will attest).
Chilies to Chocolate traces the biological and cultural history of some New World crops that have worldwide economic importance. Drawing on disciplines as diverse as anthropology, ethnobotany, and agronomy, it focuses on the domestication and use of these plants by native peoples and their dispersion into the fields and kitchens of the Old tomatoes to Italy, chili peppers throughout Asia, cacao wherever a sweet tooth craves chocolate. Indeed, potatoes and maize now rank with wheat and rice as the world's principal crops.
"The sweetness of corn on the cob is sweeter for knowing the long, winding way by which it has come into one's hands," observe Foster and Cordell. Featuring contributions by Gary Nabhan, Alan Davidson, and others, Chilies to Chocolate will increase readers' appreciation of the foods we all enjoy, of the circuitous routes by which they have become part of our diets, and of the vital role that Native Americans have played in this process.
Chilies to Chocolate traces the biological and cultural history of some New World crops that have worldwide economic importance. Drawing on disciplines as diverse as anthropology, ethnobotany, and agronomy, it focuses on the domestication and use of these plants by native peoples and their dispersion into the fields and kitchens of the Old tomatoes to Italy, chili peppers throughout Asia, cacao wherever a sweet tooth craves chocolate. Indeed, potatoes and maize now rank with wheat and rice as the world's principal crops.
"The sweetness of corn on the cob is sweeter for knowing the long, winding way by which it has come into one's hands," observe Foster and Cordell. Featuring contributions by Gary Nabhan, Alan Davidson, and others, Chilies to Chocolate will increase readers' appreciation of the foods we all enjoy, of the circuitous routes by which they have become part of our diets, and of the vital role that Native Americans have played in this process.
191 pages, Paperback
First published July 1, 1992
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
January 10, 2019
High-quality field research on Native farmers and quirky European historic trivia combine with Foster's deep respect for nature in this satiating read. Somewhat dated, however.
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"...Few of the plants cultivated in the Americas were recognizable to Columbus, but having come for spices and desperate for anything that might recover the cost of his voyage, he carried back... seeds and live plant specimens."
"... The Old World's reception of New World crops was far from regular... Fine American crops were rejected or went unappreciated until their virtues were later discovered, often as a result of economic necessity."
"... Indigenous agricultural communities serve as gene banks for mainstream monoculture..."
"The potato was the first vegetable of [the Spaniard's] acquaintance to be grown from tubers rather than from seed."
"...Under the prevailing Doctrine of Signatures, whereby a fruit or vegetable's appearance indicated what part of the body it would affect (hence walnuts being recommended for diseases of the brain and red beets for anemia), it was even thought that eating potatoes led to leprosy."
"In France, there is little evidence of eggplant being used in the two or three centuries following its arrival."
"In Hungary, the government ordered potatoes to be grown after a famine in 1772."
"Comparing archeological evidence of prehistoric diets to known diets of contemporary hunter-gatherers, he found that dietary diversity was severely reduced when people adopted a settled agricultural way of life."
"As I stepped out of the bus, before me lay an expanse of emerald-green canals with plots of dark rich earth filled with flowers, chillies, and maize - the famed chinampas, the 'floating gardens' of Mexico."
"Studies of numerous species, including amaranth, indicate that throughout the Americas, native breeders worked to obtain not only increased plant size and yield, but flamboyantly colored flowers and fruits."
"The Mendocino Codex, a record of Aztec society and culture... shows eighteen royal granaries for amaranth... with the total take reaching hundreds of thousands of bushels."
"The nutrient-rich canals surrounding the chinampas also support carp and axolotl, a large edible salamander the Mexicans consider a delicacy."
"Perhaps the most significant use of Aztec grain amaranth was in religious rituals... In 1525 the Church began a systematic campaign to stamp out any vestiges of pre-Columbian religious practice, and 6 years later a zealous bishop claimed to have destroyed 20,000 idols and 500 shrines."
"...By 1987, Chinese farmers had more than 177,000 acres of amaranth under cultivation."
"Of the more than 35,000 orchid species that botanists have described, only vanilla orchids produce edible fruit, and only 2 of the 50 vanilla orchid species have commercial value..."
"If allowed to grow freely, vanilla vines climb high into the forest canopy... buds take as long as 6 weeks to mature, then open for only one day... usually dropping off by nightfall unless... pollinated. A vine may produce a thousand blossoms but... at the most 300 of these are pollinated and develop into fruit."
"As long as a vanilla vine is growing directly upward, it will not flower... Thus the Totonacs looped each vine back to the ground..."
"In 1571 King Philip of Spain dispatched Francisco Hernandez to Mexico on a 6-year mission during which Hernandez studied vanilla and other elements of New World pharmacopoeia. "
"... The history of maize traced back some 8,000 years... it represented the most remarkable plant breeding accomplishment of all time."
"The ancestor of maize is a wild grass called teosinte (God's corn) that still grows in some parts of Mexico, Guatemala, and Honduras. Teosinte remains highly successful in the wild, while maize fails..."
"By the time Columbus arrived on the scene, maize had been established throughout most of continental America as well as in the Caribbean islands where he first encountered it."
"...Chili pepper was the most common spice used by the Native Americans..."
"New World capsicums reached the East Indies (Indonesia) by 1540... introduced either by the Portuguese or by Arab and Gujarati traders, who had been active in Southeast Asia for a thousand years."
"In 1564, after... Andres de Urdaneta showed it was possible to sail to Mexico from the Far East by following prevailing westerlies, a Manila-Acapulco galleon route was established."
"On slopes rising 4 vertical miles... in climates varying from tropical to polar, the Incas cultivated almost as many species of plants as the farmers of all of Asia. Without money, iron, written language, or the wheel, in the 15th century the Incas terraced and irrigated those precipitous heights to produce abundant food for 15 million or more subjects."
"It is recorded that Columbus, returning from his second trip to the Americas... brought cacao to his sponsor King Ferdinand... overlooked at that time, as most early references credit Cortes..."
"Cortes had an advantage over Columbus in having observed the preparation of cacao drinks and having consumed them at Montezuma's court. What pleased the Aztec nobles pleased the Spanish crown as well..."
"Each pod contains as many as 50 beans, enough to make a 100-gram chocolate bar."
"Spanish colonial governments took over much of the prosperous Mayan agriculture and trade, thereby establishing a monopoly on cacao production. During the 16th and 17th centuries, cacao became the Spaniards' most important export crop... The precious beans were actually used as currency in Central America as late as the 18th century."
"Richard Cadbury's classic text "Cocoa: All About It", published in 1896, lists the ingredients used by Spanish royalty: 100 kernels of cocoa, 2 grains of chili peppers, handful of anise, dozen almonds and dozen hazelnuts, achiotte, sugar, vanilla, musk, ambergris, cinnamon, pod of campeche, powdered white roses, and orange water."
"... London's first chocolate house, opened in 1657, was run by a Frenchman.... chocolate houses rapidly increased in number, and became centers of political, economic, and social debate for the wealthy and powerful."
"... Quinoa was cultivated as early as 5800 to 4500 B.C. in the Ayacucho basin of Peru and was being traded by 1000 to 900 B.C.... A closely related chenopod still found in the wild has been unearthed at several archeological excavations in the eastern United States... dating from about 2000 years ago."
"Each year, the Inca ruler planted the first quinoa seeds of the season, using a golden foot plow, and priests offered it to the sun in vases of gold at the solstice."
"The Bolivian government... began promoting quinoa in the mid 1970's, even passing a law that required bread to contain a minimum 5% quinoa flour."
"Many quinoa varieties are sensitive to the length of the day, and will not bloom until days and nights are equally long."
"...Annual crops were not broadcast - not sowed by hand-scattering seeds - in the manner that Old World farmers planted wheat, barley, lentils, and oats.... Native American crops were usually planted in mounds or holes spaced several paces apart. They were probably gathered in a similar fashion - not collectively cut with sickles and then threshed, but instead harvested one by one. These practices meant that Native American farmers had great opportunity to notice novel variants... experts at single plant selection."
"Pesticide-laden 'wild rice' has created stiff competition for the Anishinabey, the Ojibway, and other Indian peoples of the Great Lakes region who harvest wild rice by hand... For the Ojibway, the wild rice harvest has been a time for family cooperation, singing, story-telling, and camping. One Ojibway youth explained to me that the harvest was more than an economic pursuit, that he "just loves the rhythm of the ricing."
.
--------
"...Few of the plants cultivated in the Americas were recognizable to Columbus, but having come for spices and desperate for anything that might recover the cost of his voyage, he carried back... seeds and live plant specimens."
"... The Old World's reception of New World crops was far from regular... Fine American crops were rejected or went unappreciated until their virtues were later discovered, often as a result of economic necessity."
"... Indigenous agricultural communities serve as gene banks for mainstream monoculture..."
"The potato was the first vegetable of [the Spaniard's] acquaintance to be grown from tubers rather than from seed."
"...Under the prevailing Doctrine of Signatures, whereby a fruit or vegetable's appearance indicated what part of the body it would affect (hence walnuts being recommended for diseases of the brain and red beets for anemia), it was even thought that eating potatoes led to leprosy."
"In France, there is little evidence of eggplant being used in the two or three centuries following its arrival."
"In Hungary, the government ordered potatoes to be grown after a famine in 1772."
"Comparing archeological evidence of prehistoric diets to known diets of contemporary hunter-gatherers, he found that dietary diversity was severely reduced when people adopted a settled agricultural way of life."
"As I stepped out of the bus, before me lay an expanse of emerald-green canals with plots of dark rich earth filled with flowers, chillies, and maize - the famed chinampas, the 'floating gardens' of Mexico."
"Studies of numerous species, including amaranth, indicate that throughout the Americas, native breeders worked to obtain not only increased plant size and yield, but flamboyantly colored flowers and fruits."
"The Mendocino Codex, a record of Aztec society and culture... shows eighteen royal granaries for amaranth... with the total take reaching hundreds of thousands of bushels."
"The nutrient-rich canals surrounding the chinampas also support carp and axolotl, a large edible salamander the Mexicans consider a delicacy."
"Perhaps the most significant use of Aztec grain amaranth was in religious rituals... In 1525 the Church began a systematic campaign to stamp out any vestiges of pre-Columbian religious practice, and 6 years later a zealous bishop claimed to have destroyed 20,000 idols and 500 shrines."
"...By 1987, Chinese farmers had more than 177,000 acres of amaranth under cultivation."
"Of the more than 35,000 orchid species that botanists have described, only vanilla orchids produce edible fruit, and only 2 of the 50 vanilla orchid species have commercial value..."
"If allowed to grow freely, vanilla vines climb high into the forest canopy... buds take as long as 6 weeks to mature, then open for only one day... usually dropping off by nightfall unless... pollinated. A vine may produce a thousand blossoms but... at the most 300 of these are pollinated and develop into fruit."
"As long as a vanilla vine is growing directly upward, it will not flower... Thus the Totonacs looped each vine back to the ground..."
"In 1571 King Philip of Spain dispatched Francisco Hernandez to Mexico on a 6-year mission during which Hernandez studied vanilla and other elements of New World pharmacopoeia. "
"... The history of maize traced back some 8,000 years... it represented the most remarkable plant breeding accomplishment of all time."
"The ancestor of maize is a wild grass called teosinte (God's corn) that still grows in some parts of Mexico, Guatemala, and Honduras. Teosinte remains highly successful in the wild, while maize fails..."
"By the time Columbus arrived on the scene, maize had been established throughout most of continental America as well as in the Caribbean islands where he first encountered it."
"...Chili pepper was the most common spice used by the Native Americans..."
"New World capsicums reached the East Indies (Indonesia) by 1540... introduced either by the Portuguese or by Arab and Gujarati traders, who had been active in Southeast Asia for a thousand years."
"In 1564, after... Andres de Urdaneta showed it was possible to sail to Mexico from the Far East by following prevailing westerlies, a Manila-Acapulco galleon route was established."
"On slopes rising 4 vertical miles... in climates varying from tropical to polar, the Incas cultivated almost as many species of plants as the farmers of all of Asia. Without money, iron, written language, or the wheel, in the 15th century the Incas terraced and irrigated those precipitous heights to produce abundant food for 15 million or more subjects."
"It is recorded that Columbus, returning from his second trip to the Americas... brought cacao to his sponsor King Ferdinand... overlooked at that time, as most early references credit Cortes..."
"Cortes had an advantage over Columbus in having observed the preparation of cacao drinks and having consumed them at Montezuma's court. What pleased the Aztec nobles pleased the Spanish crown as well..."
"Each pod contains as many as 50 beans, enough to make a 100-gram chocolate bar."
"Spanish colonial governments took over much of the prosperous Mayan agriculture and trade, thereby establishing a monopoly on cacao production. During the 16th and 17th centuries, cacao became the Spaniards' most important export crop... The precious beans were actually used as currency in Central America as late as the 18th century."
"Richard Cadbury's classic text "Cocoa: All About It", published in 1896, lists the ingredients used by Spanish royalty: 100 kernels of cocoa, 2 grains of chili peppers, handful of anise, dozen almonds and dozen hazelnuts, achiotte, sugar, vanilla, musk, ambergris, cinnamon, pod of campeche, powdered white roses, and orange water."
"... London's first chocolate house, opened in 1657, was run by a Frenchman.... chocolate houses rapidly increased in number, and became centers of political, economic, and social debate for the wealthy and powerful."
"... Quinoa was cultivated as early as 5800 to 4500 B.C. in the Ayacucho basin of Peru and was being traded by 1000 to 900 B.C.... A closely related chenopod still found in the wild has been unearthed at several archeological excavations in the eastern United States... dating from about 2000 years ago."
"Each year, the Inca ruler planted the first quinoa seeds of the season, using a golden foot plow, and priests offered it to the sun in vases of gold at the solstice."
"The Bolivian government... began promoting quinoa in the mid 1970's, even passing a law that required bread to contain a minimum 5% quinoa flour."
"Many quinoa varieties are sensitive to the length of the day, and will not bloom until days and nights are equally long."
"...Annual crops were not broadcast - not sowed by hand-scattering seeds - in the manner that Old World farmers planted wheat, barley, lentils, and oats.... Native American crops were usually planted in mounds or holes spaced several paces apart. They were probably gathered in a similar fashion - not collectively cut with sickles and then threshed, but instead harvested one by one. These practices meant that Native American farmers had great opportunity to notice novel variants... experts at single plant selection."
"Pesticide-laden 'wild rice' has created stiff competition for the Anishinabey, the Ojibway, and other Indian peoples of the Great Lakes region who harvest wild rice by hand... For the Ojibway, the wild rice harvest has been a time for family cooperation, singing, story-telling, and camping. One Ojibway youth explained to me that the harvest was more than an economic pursuit, that he "just loves the rhythm of the ricing."
.
October 17, 2017
New World Foods Go Viral !
Well, back in the days of the "Columbian Exchange" they did go viral. Now I guess it's old news. But if you're interested in the origins and spread round the world of such edibles as potatoes, tomatoes, chilies, chocolate, corn, quinoa, beans, and vanilla (to name most of them), you've come to the right place. This slim, edited volume, written mostly in a very readable fashion, provides interesting and useful information on such topics. There is also a fascinating chapter on the "unknown foods", cultivated by Native Americans in Central or South America, but ignored by the Spanish colonizers and by outsiders ever since. These include varieties of potato, plus oca, maca, arracacha, yacon, ahipa, ulluco, and a couple of others. You never heard of these roots, right? Neither had I, but now I am the wiser because I've read Foster and Cordell's edited book. The only criticism I have is that the article on chilies contains several historical or linguistic errors which could have been checked. The author of that one is more a gourmet chef and writer than a scientist and it shows. The epilogue, about the damage done to Native American horticultural heritage and how to repair it, if possible, is also a useful addition. I think color photos of the various crops would have been an excellent idea.
Well, back in the days of the "Columbian Exchange" they did go viral. Now I guess it's old news. But if you're interested in the origins and spread round the world of such edibles as potatoes, tomatoes, chilies, chocolate, corn, quinoa, beans, and vanilla (to name most of them), you've come to the right place. This slim, edited volume, written mostly in a very readable fashion, provides interesting and useful information on such topics. There is also a fascinating chapter on the "unknown foods", cultivated by Native Americans in Central or South America, but ignored by the Spanish colonizers and by outsiders ever since. These include varieties of potato, plus oca, maca, arracacha, yacon, ahipa, ulluco, and a couple of others. You never heard of these roots, right? Neither had I, but now I am the wiser because I've read Foster and Cordell's edited book. The only criticism I have is that the article on chilies contains several historical or linguistic errors which could have been checked. The author of that one is more a gourmet chef and writer than a scientist and it shows. The epilogue, about the damage done to Native American horticultural heritage and how to repair it, if possible, is also a useful addition. I think color photos of the various crops would have been an excellent idea.
May 12, 2020
Many of the foods eaten around the world are native to the Americas. Before 1492, Italian cuisine had no tomatoes, Irish cooking was without potatoes, and Koreans did not eat chili peppers. Now, it's hard to imagine these cuisines without these foods.
In addition to exploring the spread of New World foods across the globe, this book highlights the accomplishments of Incan, Mayan, and Aztec farmers, whose sophisticated plant-breeding and agricultural techniques developed the foods that are now enjoyed all over the world.
In addition to exploring the spread of New World foods across the globe, this book highlights the accomplishments of Incan, Mayan, and Aztec farmers, whose sophisticated plant-breeding and agricultural techniques developed the foods that are now enjoyed all over the world.
July 17, 2016
I picked this book up on a lark in a museum or park gift shop somewhere in or near Tucson AZ. I read it. It was fantastic!! My mom (who had been with me on the trip to Tucson, and has never understood my compulsion to buy books) read it, and she was thrilled!! Shortest book review ever: if you are interested in the geographical origins of food, in particular the foods that came from the Americas (like chilies, and chocolate, and vanilla, and tomatoes, and potatoes! frankly, I can't imagine my life without any of those foods) and how they became part of various cuisines, read this book! It was so interesting to us, we had never really considered these foods' origins (and there were some that we didn't realize originated in the Americas), and it was fun to think of certain cuisines without certain iconic foodstuffs (Italian without tomatoes? Irish without potatoes?).
January 26, 2015
A good broad and informative history of crops from the Americas. This book is a number of complied essays from various authors. Even with that variable I found almost all of the essays informative and entertaining. However, I did find the essay on Amaranth to be quite hard to read. That essay seemed to ramble far too much. Other than that essay the rest of it was a great read. I recommend it if you are interested in learning about crops that orginated in the Americas.
dnf-partial-read
December 21, 2025Read solely for "A Brief History and Botany of Cacao" by John. A West
June 20, 2020
I bought this book like 10+ years ago at a science museum that was having an exhibit on the history and science of chocolate. Finally read it! Some of the essays are more dry and academic, but honestly the history of food and the story of how indigenous people got totally screwed by colonists are super fascinating, if not depressing or rage-inducing at times. I learned about vases with lima bean warriors on them! Also I learned so much about potatoes and how many species of potatoes exist in S. America and I'm now very jealous, because I want to try all those potatoes. Also it totally breaks my heart the way colonizers destroyed years of developed agricultural knowledge and replaced it with the European way of doing everything. Ugh.
So yeah. This book is a little dry at times (also a little dated--in the book quinoa has yet to become a 'normal' food in the US), but super interesting material.
So yeah. This book is a little dry at times (also a little dated--in the book quinoa has yet to become a 'normal' food in the US), but super interesting material.
January 2, 2018
Interesting and informative, and I really enjoyed the perspectives of multiple authors and the essay-style format.
January 25, 2008
An acceptable introduction to the Columbian Exchange. But mostly a collection of essays. Not well put together. Some chapters (on potatoes, tomatoes, chili, chocolate) were well written. Some (amaranth!) were annoying.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews