How the Chile Pepper Took Over the World

Until 500 years ago, the spice as we know it was confined to Central and South America. Matt Gross travels to Jamaica, Hungary, and Thailand to uncover how that heat wave came, saw, and conquered.

Words by Matt Gross
Illustrations by Valero Doval

THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS when you bite into a chile pepper: A full load of the chemical capsaicin — the compound that makes peppers hot — floods your tongue and throat, binding to pain receptors and shooting an insistent S.O.S. message to the brain that, essentially, your mouth is on fire. Then there’s sweating. Panting. Maybe some crying. And then, finally, the glorious endorphin rush, which instantly transforms all that pain into the kind of ecstasy that forges lifelong addicts: chileheads.

At least, that’s how I became one, ever since I chomped a farmers’ market cherry pepper at the age of 10. But chiles aren’t just hot. They’re head-spinningly versatile. They can be sweet, smoky, lemony, cherryish. The heat can be dry or juicy; it can sidle in, strafe, or scorch; it can strike the tip of your tongue, the insides of your cheeks, the back of your throat, or everywhere all at once.