Why do the spiciest food originates near the equator while away from it the food gets bland. Example in the Indian subcontinent – Food up north in Delhi or Calcutta will be more spicy than food in Afghanistan but way less spicy than somewhere like Tamil Nadu or Sri Lanka
In: Other
A combination of things.
Probably the biggest is that chilli was used as a preservative/disinfectant for food before refrigeration. Warmer places have more need for that, because bacteria grows better in warmer temperatures. Thus, they use more chilli.
Additionally, chillis grow more easily in warmer climates. Chillis are native to central America. From there they spread around the world, but obviously became more integral to cuisine in places that can easily grow them. If you’re a colder country, growing chillis is much more effort and so you’re probably not going to make them central to your cuisine.
That being said, there are northern European countries that have developed quite a taste for spiciness. Brits for example generally love spicy food.
Two-fold:
– the plants simply can’t be grown in those climate ranges. About the only “spicy” plants that can be grown in, say, Finland, without a greenhouse/heating/lights is horse-radish. A culture of spicy food simply didn’t develop there.
– spicy food increases sweating, which helps to cool body down, due to evaporation
“ChatGPT, how do you say “I’ve never had English Mustard or proper horseradish sauce””
Seriously, get some Tracklements spicy mustard piccalilli and you will never be able to taste anything again
Roman and Medieval European cooking used a lot of spice (for those who could afford it) the move to sweet and savoury dishes in preference to spicy ones was due to changing fashions and ideas around health.
The access to spice wasn’t the issue, there are plenty of native plants that can be used and the move away from spicy food happened when importing spices was getting cheaper.
[https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2015/03/26/394339284/how-snobbery-helped-take-the-spice-out-of-european-cooking](https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2015/03/26/394339284/how-snobbery-helped-take-the-spice-out-of-european-cooking)
Simplest answer; more plants grow in warm climates year-round so there was a better chance of locals finding spicy plants that are edible and selectively breeding them.
Colder climates just don’t produce the same quantity or variety of edible plants because they have to be hardy enough to survive winter. Plants that are hardy enough to survive winter are generally not the most tasty.
The longer answer has a lot to do with the number of animal/bug species in the area. Warmer = more bugs and animals. More bugs and animals means more seed spreading through excrement and more pollination from various bugs.
This cycles back to certain plants developing spiciness (capsaicin) to deter some animals from eating them, while still allowing birds and bugs (immune to capsaicin) to spread and pollinate their seeds.
It has to do with each areas climate. Spices for the longest time with the only food preservatives and in hotter environments near the equator where any kind of organic material broke down faster, you needed spices to help preserve it for longer, some more tropical regions developed more spicy foods and more temperate regions had them less spicy. As the spices eventually got exported to the rest of the world through colonialism, you see places like Britain developing a taste for spicy food.
I really wouldn’t say other food is ‘bland’ just the focus is on other things than trying to mask the semi rotting food. There is a reason that things like beef are generally served with little spice and not ‘fully’ cooked, they are safe and flavorful.
Even today, most places have sanitation requirements (washing your hands, gloves, keeping cooked/raw food apart) with the purpose of preventing bacteria and unsafe food. ….other places have ‘street food’ where the only food safety is throwing a bunch of spice on the food and hoping for the best
Countries where chili grows integrate chili in their traditional cooking.
Chili is a tropical plant. It comes from America and grew from the north of Mexico to the south of Brazil. After the Columbian exchange, it was grown around the world between those latitudes moroless.
PS: “we eat chili to cool down” and “it’s antibacterial” aren’t actually backed by anything. There isn’t really a definitive reason other than “culture” and “we like it”.
If I am not mistaken, it is for similar reasons that there are few cultures that preserve meats the nearer you get to the equator. The climate just doesn’t lend itself to doing it or needing to.
Spices have antibacterial properties. Warmer the weather, higher the chance of bacterial contamination, hence more spices.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4861184/
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