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List of contents
Acknowledgments
Chinese Dynasties and Regimes
Introduction
1. Names and Places: How the Chile Found Its Way “Home” to China
2. Spicing Up the Palate
3. Spicing Up the Pharmacopeia
4. Too Hot for Words: Elite Reticence Toward Chile Peppers
5. Chiles as Beautiful Objects and Literary Emblems
6. Mao’s Little Red Spice: Chiles and Regional Identity Conclusion
Appendix A. Late Imperial Recipe Collections
Appendix B. Medical Texts Consulted
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Color Plates
About the author
Brian R. Dott is Robert Allen Skotheim Chair of History at Whitman College. He is the author of Identity Reflections: Pilgrimages to Mount Tai in Late Imperial China (2004).
Summary
Chinese cuisine without chile peppers seems unimaginable. Entranced by the fiery taste, diners worldwide have fallen for Chinese cooking. In China, chiles are everywhere, from dried peppers hanging from eaves to Mao’s boast that revolution would be impossible without chiles, from the eighteenth-century novel Dream of the Red Chamber to contemporary music videos. Indeed, they are so common that many Chinese assume they are native. Yet there were no chiles anywhere in China prior to the 1570s, when they were introduced from the Americas.
Brian R. Dott explores how the nonnative chile went from obscurity to ubiquity in China, influencing not just cuisine but also medicine, language, and cultural identity. He details how its versatility became essential to a variety of regional cuisines and swayed both elite and popular medical and healing practices. Dott tracks the cultural meaning of the chile across a wide swath of literary texts and artworks, revealing how the spread of chiles fundamentally altered the meaning of the term spicy. He emphasizes the intersection between food and gender, tracing the chile as a symbol for both male virility and female passion. Integrating food studies, the history of medicine, and Chinese cultural history, The Chile Pepper in China sheds new light on the piquant cultural impact of a potent plant and raises broader questions regarding notions of authenticity in cuisine.
