The Chile Pepper in China: A Cultural Biography

With its lucid, lively style, copious illustrations, & recipes this book could be a model for studies of the assimilation of other New World ingredients, especially in India & China. It will be of great value to students & academics & anyone with an interest [in] Chinese cuisine & culture. — Food, Culture, & Society

There is much to praise about the book: its painstaking research, its sensitivity to the diversities of regional & historical contexts within China, & the top-notch storytelling. On the last point, Dott deserves special mention. The Chile Pepper in China will be one of the few books that will be read & savored by academics & civilians alike. — Twentieth-Century China

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Short-listed, 2021 Best in the World Food Culture Spices category, Gourmand Awards

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 non-native chile went from obscurity to ubiquity in China, influencing not just cuisine but also medicine, language, & cultural identity. The Chile Pepper in China sheds new light on the piquant cultural impact of a potent plant & raises broader questions regarding notions of authenticity in cuisine.

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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).