Collection: Chillies

No other commodity imported into India has had such an impact on the lives of Indians as chilies.  It is unlikely that there is any Indian who has not tasted chillies.  Indian cuisine relied on pepper and other spices until the early 16th century, when chilies arrived in Goa on a Portuguese caravel sailing from Brazil. The first reference of chiles in Indian literature is in a poem composed in the 1560s by the South Indian composer and saint poet Purandaradasa.

The poem states:

I saw you green, then turning red as you ripened

Nice to look at and tasty in the dish, enhancer of good food

And when I eat you, even to think of Vithala is difficult!