Nah the Sichuan pepper is really old, native to China (and the Himalayas in general) and has been cultivated in Sichuan for centuries. Their cooking nowadays uses the American chili pepper as well because it’s delicious, but the mala spice of Sichuan peppers prepared them for the spicy chilis of the Americas.
Sichuan peppers are not spicy because of capsaicin iirc and are more like a peppercorn than a chili (though not closely related to either). They aren’t the same sort of spicy. Its more like a tingly/numbing sensation.
My point is that when your cooking already incorporates numbing spice, it’s easy to see the possibilities with chilis. If your cuisine, like the costal provinces, is defined by not having that numbing spice you’re not going to be very inclined to use chilis either. The different types of Chinese cuisine are quite old.
I think it might have something to do with spices historically being used to mask the taste of food that is going bad but still edible. People on the coast would mostly eat seafood and you don’t want to be doing that with seafood.
I don’t know, this is just pure speculation on my part.
the turning meat explanation is what I’ve always heard, and the interior provinces were poorer than the coasts so it intuitively tracks
sichuanese shuizhuyu (“boiled fish”) is just fish boiled with a ton of chilis, which seems like the thing you would do if the fish weren’t smellin’ so hot anymore
hotpot started as poor people food (throw whatever you’ve got handy - the stuff nobody else wants to eat - into intensely spicy oil broth), then rich people caught on and the “weird” exotic stuff became expensive delicacies
hotpot started as poor people food (throw whatever you’ve got handy - the stuff nobody else wants to eat - into intensely spicy oil broth), then rich people caught on and the “weird” exotic stuff became expensive delicacies
Same thing happened in the west with stuff like oyster and lobster, it was the garbage food that the fishers would eat after selling all the quality food (fish) and then rich people came along and were tricked into eating the leftover snot balls and sea bugs and they become fancy expensive rich people food.
I’ve always wondered why the coastal provinces dont really eat spice, surely chilis had to be imported from ports right?
Nah the Sichuan pepper is really old, native to China (and the Himalayas in general) and has been cultivated in Sichuan for centuries. Their cooking nowadays uses the American chili pepper as well because it’s delicious, but the mala spice of Sichuan peppers prepared them for the spicy chilis of the Americas.
Sichuan peppers are not spicy because of capsaicin iirc and are more like a peppercorn than a chili (though not closely related to either). They aren’t the same sort of spicy. Its more like a tingly/numbing sensation.
Yea but alot of the spicy dishes still use the New World Chili, why didnt those rub off in the coastal provinces
My point is that when your cooking already incorporates numbing spice, it’s easy to see the possibilities with chilis. If your cuisine, like the costal provinces, is defined by not having that numbing spice you’re not going to be very inclined to use chilis either. The different types of Chinese cuisine are quite old.
麻辣 refers to the flavor combination of 四川 numbing peppercorn (麻) and American capsaicin peppers (辣)
I think it might have something to do with spices historically being used to mask the taste of food that is going bad but still edible. People on the coast would mostly eat seafood and you don’t want to be doing that with seafood.
I don’t know, this is just pure speculation on my part.
A plate of spicy ceviche sort of destroys that thesis. I suspect its more about where the peppers grow.
the turning meat explanation is what I’ve always heard, and the interior provinces were poorer than the coasts so it intuitively tracks
sichuanese shuizhuyu (“boiled fish”) is just fish boiled with a ton of chilis, which seems like the thing you would do if the fish weren’t smellin’ so hot anymore
hotpot started as poor people food (throw whatever you’ve got handy - the stuff nobody else wants to eat - into intensely spicy oil broth), then rich people caught on and the “weird” exotic stuff became expensive delicacies
Same thing happened in the west with stuff like oyster and lobster, it was the garbage food that the fishers would eat after selling all the quality food (fish) and then rich people came along and were tricked into eating the leftover snot balls and sea bugs and they become fancy expensive rich people food.