[Aztlan] ANCIENT MEXICAN CHILI PEPPERS

[michael ruggeri]

Ancient Americans Liked It Hot: Mexican Cuisine Traced To 1,500 Years  
Ago
Science Daily — One of the world's tastiest and most popular  
cuisines, Mexican food also may be one of the oldest.


These chili peppers from the Guila Naquitz cave in Oaxaca Mexico date  
to between A.D. 490 and 780, and represent two cultivars or  
cultivated types. A Smithsonian scientist analyzed the chili pepper  
remains and determined that Pre-Columbian inhabitants of the region  
hundreds of years ago enjoyed a spicy fare similar to Mexican cuisine  
today. (Credit: Linda Perry, Smithsonian Institution)

Plant remains from two caves in southern Mexico analyzed by a  
Smithsonian ethnobotanist/archaeologist and a colleague indicate that  
as early as 1,500 years ago, Pre-Columbian inhabitants of the region  
enjoyed a spicy fare similar to Mexican cuisine today. The two caves  
yielded 10 different cultivars (cultivated varieties) of chili peppers.
"This analysis demonstrates that chilies in Mexican food have been  
numerous and complex for a long period of time," said lead author  
Linda Perry, of the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History.  
"It reveals a great antiquity for the Mexican cuisine that we're  
familiar with today."
Perry and Kent V. Flannery, of the University of Michigan, studied  
desiccated plant remains from excavations in Guilá Naquitz and  
Silvia's Cave, two dry rock shelters near Mitla in the Valley of  
Oaxaca, southern Mexico. Guilá Naquitz is famous for its well- 
preserved plant remains, dating back to the beginnings of squash  
cultivation in Mexico some 10,000 years ago. Arid conditions through  
the centuries prevented decay of the crop remains, which include  
corn, squash, beans, avocados and chili peppers.
This new study focuses on the two upper layers of ash and debris  
known as Zone "A" and "Super-A," spanning the period circa A.D.  
500--1500. Perry was able to distinguish different cultivars among  
the abundantly preserved chili peppers, a type of analysis that had  
not been completed on ancient Mexican chilies.
Perry found that peppers from Guilá Naquitz included at least seven  
different cultivars. Peppers from the smaller sample in Silvia's cave  
represented three cultivars.
It is unknown whether the cultivars found in the cave correspond to  
modern varieties, or if they were types that died out after the  
arrival of Europeans in Mexico. Perry said one looks like a Tabasco  
pepper and another like a cayenne pepper, but it is difficult to know  
how closely related they are to modern varieties without a genetic  
analysis.
"What was interesting to me was that we were able to determine that  
they were using the peppers both dried and fresh," Perry said.  
(Chilies broken while fresh had a recognizable breakage pattern.) "It  
shows us that ancient Mexican food was very much like today. They  
would have used fresh peppers in salsas or in immediate preparation,  
and they would have used the dried peppers to toss into stews or to  
grind up into sauces like moles."
During the period circa A.D. 500--1500, the caves served as temporary  
camps and storage areas for farmers from Mitla--a major town on the  
river of the same name--whose cultivated fields evidently extended to  
the slopes of the piedmont below Guilá Naquitz and Silvia's Cave. The  
Zapotec-speaking people planted crops in several environmental zones-- 
river bottoms, piedmont and mountains-- probably as a way of  
buffering risk; it also added variety to the diet.
"In the cave deposits, we can see excellent documentation for the  
sophistication of the agriculture and the cuisine at this point in  
time," Perry said. "You don't grow seven different kinds of chilies  
unless you're cooking some pretty interesting food."
The study will be published the week of July 9 in the online edition  
of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Note: This story has been adapted from a news release issued by  
Smithsonian.





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