This book contains an informative, humorous history of mostly well- known spices from A-Z. This month’s fea￾tured spice, Chilli Pepper, has a complex history and use across the world. The hotter the country, the hotter the spice. Longer growing allows for more concentrated heat. Harvested green, pods are considered vegetables. Har￾vested in dried mature colors of red or orange, they be￾come a spice. Capsaicinoids in spicy peppers bind with receptors in the mouth and throat to create a burning sen￾sation which raises our heart rate, makes us perspire and goads the central nervous system into producing endor￾phins, and opiate-like neuropeptides that induce feelings of contentment and euphoria. It is possible to become addicted to eating chili, just as people become addicted to exercise. Many who dislike chillis at first later come to love them. And this learned preference crosses the species barrier. Rats won’t eat chili peppers but can learn to prefer it by being exposed to oth￾er rats that have eaten it. However, humans are the only omnivores that regularly eat chillis. How safe are spicy chillis? Capsaicin can burn literally as well as figuratively. Wear gloves when handling hot chillis, and if you forget and burn yourself, remember that splashing cold water on the burn will have no effect. Cap￾saicin is soluble in alcohol and oils, so you should either coat your hands in vegetable oil, then wash with soap and water, or rub the area with isopropyl alcohol. If you burn your mouth, eat Greek yoghurt. Casein, found in dairy products, strip the capsaicin molecules from the receptors. The popularity of the bland green pepper shows that peo￾ple like the flavor without the burn. In Szechuan cuisine, chillis are browned in hot fat to lessen the impact

of the capsaicin in kung pao chicken. And while heat is extreme￾ly important in south-east Asian cooking, it is designed to be experienced in the context of more subtle tastes where herbs such as lemongrass and galangal also play a crucial role. Pepper is Columbus’s misnomer. Believing it to be a species of piper nigrum (black pepper), he shipped it back to Spain, and from there, chillis found their way to Portu￾gal, India, Africa, Central and Eastern Europe. Classifica￾tion is big problem with chillis because of the ease with which they cross-pollinate. There are hundreds of differ￾ent types and sub-types. Because of the pepper’s irregular size and shapes, it was very difficult for farmers to deter￾mine which chili they were growing from year to year. At last count, there were believed to be thirty-two species of chili.

Awards for the hottest chillis? The names say it all: The Scorpion of Death, Carolina Reaper, The Ghost Pep￾per, Levanta Muertos (raising the dead), and Rocotos (rockets).

By Susan Hart, Member