Peppers split from The Salt War.

[diane]

Looks like 150 days to maternity and hot weather.

Hmm. That might just be the reason - the old timers never planted until June. Then it started getting cold September. Now days, no problem - then...! Still dried ones you don't have to grow. It was easier to trade north, lots of rivers and passes, but south is blocked fairly well by the Cascades. (And the Pits...they don't like anybody!)

 

[jgoodguy]

Hmm. That might just be the reason - the old timers never planted until June. Then it started getting cold September. Now days, no problem - then...! Still dried ones you don't have to grow. It was easier to trade north, lots of rivers and passes, but south is blocked fairly well by the Cascades. (And the Pits...they don't like anybody!)

It is a puzzle about the dried ones. California was controlled by Mexico and Mexico had chili peppers.

 

[diane]

Mexico didn't give a rolling tortilla about anybody past SF! The haciendas had their own private armies so they didn't care too much about Mexico. The Spanish didn't either - their furthest north fortifications ended at the Presidio in SF. Mexico did make everybody in California a Mexican citizen but the tribes didn't know anything about it, nor would they have cared if they did! I believe some of the tribes from northern Mexico traded with the Southwest but there was a big ugly desert between them and the Golden State. For a long, long time, nobody knew what was above Monterey Bay.

I think the really lucrative trade was with the Central American tribes along the Gulf - they've found wild rice from Minnesota in Guatemala but the climate and the soil wasn't right for it. The little Mayan colony just below Natchez was doing fine for many years until their chief died. Their custom was to bury him with servants so they killed a couple dozen of the folks around them. Kind of wore out their welcome all at once right there! The big chief upriver sent warriors and annihilated them. Do not come back! And they didn't...

 

[jgoodguy]

Mexico didn't give a rolling tortilla about anybody past SF! The haciendas had their own private armies so they didn't care too much about Mexico. The Spanish didn't either - their furthest north fortifications ended at the Presidio in SF. Mexico did make everybody in California a Mexican citizen but the tribes didn't know anything about it, nor would they have cared if they did! I believe some of the tribes from northern Mexico traded with the Southwest but there was a big ugly desert between them and the Golden State. For a long, long time, nobody knew what was above Monterey Bay.

I think the really lucrative trade was with the Central American tribes along the Gulf - they've found wild rice from Minnesota in Guatemala but the climate and the soil wasn't right for it. The little Mayan colony just below Natchez was doing fine for many years until their chief died. Their custom was to bury him with servants so they killed a couple dozen of the folks around them. Kind of wore out their welcome all at once right there! The big chief upriver sent warriors and annihilated them. Do not come back! And they didn't...

Wine Country seems to be the Northern reach for the Mexicans. Either they used all the peppers they had or any traders carried more valuable items.

 

[diane]

Wine Country seems to be the Northern reach for the Mexicans. Either they used all the peppers they had or any traders carried more valuable items.

For quite a long time the Californios were isolated from both the Spanish empire and Mexico because of terrain. Especially in Wine Country! The mountains completely enveloped them and they did indeed develop their own style of cuisine. Californio cooking combined Spanish, Mexican, Native and Chinese influences. Their signature is black olives in everything - the Californios introduced olive orchards to California.

 

[Jim Klag]

Your source ?

Me. My wife and I visited the Yucatan years ago where we went to some pre-Columbian sites and it piqued my interest so I read up on it. Here are two books I have in my library:

Ancient Mexico: The History and Culture of the Maya, Aztecs and Other Pre-Columbian Peoples by Maria Longhena
1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus by Charles C. Mann

 

[diane]

??? Did I miss something?

Anyway, I don't think the peppers for the delicious Tabasco sauce actually come from the province of Tabasco, Mexico. BUT...when you look at the location of Tabasco province, it's just too obvious there must have been trading with the Mississippi and Louisiana people!

 

[diane]

Ah! Here we are...

By the way, one thing where two completely opposite cuisines come together with a delicious ambiance is cranberry sauce. Anybody ever throw a pepper or two in there? Also, cranberry bars with chili! Usually fusion foods mean the chef doesn't know what he's doing but sometimes there comes a happy accident. "You got cranberry sauce in my chili peppers." "You got chili peppers in my cranberry sauce!"

 

[Jim Klag]

Ah! Here we are...

By the way, one thing where two completely opposite cuisines come together with a delicious ambiance is cranberry sauce. Anybody ever throw a pepper or two in there? Also, cranberry bars with chili! Usually fusion foods mean the chef doesn't know what he's doing but sometimes there comes a happy accident. "You got cranberry sauce in my chili peppers." "You got chili peppers in my cranberry sauce!"

Apropos of nothing, I love cranberry sauce, especially lumpy, with some whole berries in it. Don't like the canned stuff.

 

[Jim Klag]

??? Did I miss something?

Anyway, I don't think the peppers for the delicious Tabasco sauce actually come from the province of Tabasco, Mexico. BUT...when you look at the location of Tabasco province, it's just too obvious there must have been trading with the Mississippi and Louisiana people!

Yes. Straight up the coast or right across the Gulf. Some of the folks from the Yucatan were of the seagoing type, IIRC, in big canoes similar to the Polynesians'.

 

[jgoodguy]

??? Did I miss something?

Anyway, I don't think the peppers for the delicious Tabasco sauce actually come from the province of Tabasco, Mexico. BUT...when you look at the location of Tabasco province, it's just too obvious there must have been trading with the Mississippi and Louisiana people!

More reading assignement.

The Real History of Tabasco® - Chuck Evans' MONTEZUMA Brand Sauces & Salsas

The Historical Record of the 1st Louisiana Tabasco Hot Sauce Manufacturer: With Evidence of the Earliest Bottled Cayenne & Bird Pepper Sauces in the United States Captain Maunsel Whites Direct Connection to Edmund McIlhenny, Founder of Avery Islands McIlhenny Company & the Tabasco® Brand By...

montezumabrand.com

The Lore of Red Peppers

Of special interest in the Maunsel White Papers is a letter of 13 June 1847 in which Maunsel White described the reception of returning Mexican-American war heroes in New Orleans. The war arose from the competing claims to Texas by Mexico and the United States in the wake of the Mexican Revolution. Texas had just fought a war of independence against Mexico, which considered Texas a “breakaway province” and refused to recognize its independence. The root causes of war were westward expansion on the part of Americans and political instability in Mexico in the aftermath of the Mexican War of Independence which had made it difficult for the United States to negotiate with Mexico and for Mexico to administer its northern territories. American troops entered Mexico City where the Mexican-American War ended in 1848 establishing the southern borders of the United States, where the subsequent Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo resulted in the United States purchase of Mexicos northern territories.​

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American soldiers fighting in the Mexican-American war returned to New Orleans from Vera Cruz[9] (Veracruz) which port city is just north of an area of Mexico known as the Tabasco region (which is now a state in Mexico). According to a series of articles from the Metropolitan News-Enterprise and conversation with the great-great grandson bearing the same name of Maunsel White; The New Orleans Daily Delta published an article about Colonel White’s new enterprise on January 26, 1850:​

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Col. White has introduced the celebrated tobasco red pepper, the very strongest of all peppers, of which he cultivated a large quantity with the view of supplying his neighbors, and diffusing it throughout the state.​

The article reports:​

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Owing to its oleaginous character, Col. White found it impossible to preserve it by drying; but by pouring strong vinegar on it after boiling, he has made a sauce or pepper decoction of it, which possesses in a most concentrated form all the quantities of the vegetable. A single drop of the sauce will flavor a whole plate of soup or other food. The use of a decoction like this, particularly in preparing the food for laboring persons, would be exceedingly beneficial in a relaxing climate like this. Col. White has not had a single case of cholera among his large gang of negroes since the disease appeared in the south. He attributes this to the free use of this valuable agent.[10]​