The tricky thing about being in the US is that it doesn’t fit in to the concept of the Chilli World Tour, in terms of unpicking the chilli’s 50 yr reverse colonisation of the world via the Portuguese.
The fact that in both San Francisco and New York, Spanish is a very strong and evident 2nd language and that Mexican food in all its diversity is one of the underpinnings of everyday culture makes the ubiquity of the chilli something that is inevitable on a number of fronts. And a function of the past four hundred years or so here. I would guess. The culinary history of the rest of the world notwithstanding.
Mind you, seeing a vinegary green chilli poking its nose out of my sauerkraut, bratwurst and mustard at lunch at the Met on Friday really suggested one part of the chilli presence in New York certainly has taken a European journey.
Is this the kind of circle being almost completed here? …There are Thai restaurants on the lower East side, and presumably there are in Mexico and Brazil as well. The trade in cuisine as it were has an almost universal reach, even if its spread has taken longer than Portuguese took with their gold and chocolate and spice trade in the 16th Century.
