Chilli: The red devil

Chillies came to India with Vasco da Gama in the late 15th century, and utterly destroyed its cuisine.

The chilli’s malice is ubiquitous. | Photo Credit: Getty Images/iStock

From the list of those slings and arrows Hamlet whined about, the one that targets me most is “contumely”. This archaic noun of insult, poised delicately between pity and scorn, is one I encounter every day. Unlike Hamlet, I don’t expect it only from the rich. I get it from humanity, en bloc.

Why, from my kitchen, this katha of woe?

My kitchen is the only place left where I can escape contumely.

The reason is very simple: there are no chillies in my kitchen.

No elegant green flâneurs swagger here. No wrinkled matrons, in red or crimson silk, hoarding spite. No plump capsicum seduces in satins of green, yellow, scarlet, purple. No habanero, byadagi, bird’s eye, jalapeño, kashmiri, jwala, guntur, ramnad mundu, cayenne or malaga dares to enter my kitchen.

My aromatic genies, bottled as masala, are untainted by such low company. Not a trace of Capsicum frutescens, the mother lode, or any of her descendants live in my kitchen. But beyond it, chillies are everywhere, and I am accursed to wander the planet foodless and friendless, fed only the deserved dose of contumely, and expected to like it.

Contumely’s spectrum is wide. At one end is kindness—“I’ve used so little chilli in this, an infant could eat it.” At the other end looms the dismissive—“Mad-or-wot?” Strung in between are so many well-meant analyses and blistering critiques that only a polite deafness preserves my sanity, and, certainly, my life.

The simple statement that the faintest trace of chilli can make me very sick, and biting into one can kill me, is met with utter and undiluted disbelief.

Mine is a food intolerance that nobody is willing to accept.

Lactose intolerance? Sure, we can do almond milk.

Nut allergy? No problem, just pass on the peanuts.                                         

Diabetes? Not a grain of sugar here, just dried fruit and jaggery.

Gluten? Me too, even though we are from paratha-fed Punjab.

On a planet so well prepared for intolerance, can cuisine be far behind?

Well, it is intolerant of my intolerance for chillies.                    

Chillies aren’t Indian

“Seriously?” asked a chef recently. She brandished a blood-stained machete. “Why, don’t you eat Indian food?”

 “I do, I do,” I babbled. “I eat only Indian food.”

 “There can be no Indian food without chilli!” she glowered. “Chilli is the very soul of Indian cuisine—north, south, east, west.”

I could have argued that, but I realised how right she was. Nobody, anywhere on the subcontinent, and possibly anywhere in the world, can cook anything without chilli. Flaunt it, or sneak it in surreptitiously, its malice is ubiquitous, universal.

She put down the machete and drew up a chair, ready to listen.

 “Chillies aren’t Indian,” I began, and she laughed so hard she fell off that chair.

 “You’ll now tell me that croissants aren’t French?”

 “They aren’t. But never mind croissants. We have only known chilli a short while, and it has utterly destroyed Indian cuisine.”

A painting of Vasco da Gama before the Zamorin of Calicut (Kozhikode), by Veloso Salgado, 1898. | Photo Credit: Wiki Commons

She reached for that machete. I made a hasty exit.

But I’d like to tell you the rest of my story.

The Columbian Exchange

India had never seen a chilli before it met Vasco da Gama. Along with potato, tomato, cocoa, sapota, pineapple and a hundred other plants plundered from the New World civilisations they had recently decimated, the Portuguese gifted us chillies while they plundered us of pepper. By the mid-16th century, we were gorging on the bright green and scarlet fruit that suddenly grew everywhere we looked.

Chilli took on heat where the stove left off.

Pepper became too expensive for the every day.

Ginger hung on cravenly, rescinded its bite, threw in its lot with garlic for that stinky universal amalgam.

But chilli’s buzz could elevate the simplest dish, whizz you to cloud nine.

Today, the term “spicy” is restricted to the burn of chilli. The collective intelligence of cumin, fenugreek, aniseed, star anise, coriander, cinnamon, cloves, cardamom and nutmeg is no longer spice. Aromatics, yeah.

And therein lies the real Columbian Exchange. The Aztec prince Montezuma breakfasted entirely on chilli. Having snatched his breakfast, what did we surrender in exchange?

The answer lies in what happens when you bite into a chilli.

You feel a sear of heat—but the temperature in your mouth hasn’t changed—so why do you feel hot?

When we bite into a chilli, the mouth registers heat, the brain registers pain, and it presses the panic button.  | Photo Credit: Getty Images/ iStock

Chilli’s mystique is capsaicin, an imposter that binds with molecules in nerve-endings meant to sense heat. Immediately, calcium ions rush in and these nerves shoot off a signal of pain to the brain.

Get that?

We never taste chilli.

The mouth registers heat, the brain registers pain, and it presses the panic button.

Out rush soothing chemicals from the pituitary—endorphins to you, opioids to me—and that switches on a slosh of dopamine.

That’s more than just hand-holding. That’s a high.

Then comes the tricky bit: the feel-good glut arrests the pain chemicals, but it also anesthetises the nerve-endings in your mouth. Your next bite demands more chilli, more salt, and, to safeguard your tender oral mucosa, much more grease.

And voila! You have the new cuisine—“spicy”—squelching with oil, ghee, butter, lard.

Slurrrrp!

Can Indian cuisine exist without chilli?

It did, deliciously, north, south, east, and west; spicy, piquant and light on the arteries. But that was before Sunday, May 20, 1498.

Capsaicin is today’s panacea, touted to relieve pain, relax cramps, prevent cancer, diabetes, hypertension, heart disease.

Oh, really?

The annual global production of chilli is 36 million tonnes. So tell me how this anti-inflammatory and anti-diabetic high sustains humanity in a never before surge of obesity, hypertension and diabetes? Plus, a growing prevalence of dementia?

As you bite into your next chilli, listen for a ghostly chuckle. That is Montezuma, enjoying his revenge.

Kalpana Swaminathan and Ishrat Syed are surgeons who write together as Kalpish Ratna. They are the authors of Gastronama: The Indian Guide to Eating Right (Roli, 2023).