How the Chili Pepper Conquered China
sixthtone.com
sixthtone.com
A reference to 1492, the year that Columbus landed in the Western Hemisphere, this book is all about the Columbian Exchange. The effects of plant, animal, and microbial species suddenly flowing all throughout a world that until that moment had quite separate and isolated biospheres.
The habit of eating raw fish in Japan probably developed indigenously but many of the words the Japanese use to describe sushi and raw fish came from China which to the surprise of many has a very strong food culture of eating raw fish and meat up till the Ming dynasty in the 14th century.
Look at what confucius wrote in the book of rites 2500 years ago: 食不厌精，脍不厌细 (you'll not get sick of good food, and you'll not get sick of kuai(raw fish /meat) that is sliced thinly.) or 脍，春用葱，秋用芥 (kuai, eat it with spring onions in spring and jie in autumn. jie is a chinese mustard. )
The chinese probably adopted the habit of eating raw fish in the past from people from southeast asia.
And while sashima is almost certainly developed indigenously in Japan, the predecessor of the modern Sushi in japan (fish preserved in rice) is most likely developed in China.
Food history is so interesting but largley neglected.
The Song dynasty chinese were already eating baozi and writing about it in their books and documents in the early 11th century, before the Ottomans were established or Genghis Khan was born.
And Baozi is just another name for Mantou in ancient China which is a name for the food which is even older stretching back to the Han dynasty over two millenia ago.
It doesn't taste or feel anything like a battery, but it is quite unique!
It has a peppy citrus flavour, but also kind of numbs your whole mouth - it might sound odd, but it's really nice when combined with other ingredients.
You should be able to get peppercorns or oil from your nearest Asian store if you want to try it for yourself.
A few places I've been to lately use it in cocktails, very interesting flavour.
There's also a Brazilian herb/flower with similar properties that is becoming popular in gastronomy.
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2013.168...
They are not really spicy, but they create this nice buzz and have very nice smell, for spiciness they need to be combined with chilli peppers (see the most famous Chinese dish - gongbao jiding (incorrectly called kungpao chicken) - chicken dices with chilli, huajiao, spring onion and nuts).
[1] https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2013.168...