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7 min
21/01/2026
Chillies began their life elsewhere, not in India, which also came as a surprise to some Indian researchers. If Indian food were a galaxy of its own, chilli peppers would be the surprise asteroid (a welcome outsider) that hijacked the status quo. Arriving late, uninvited, and foreign, they rewrote flavour rules and dethroned black pepper. This is the chilli pepper’s origin story, that nobody remembers, because it snuck up on Indian cuisine like a smooth criminal.
Just like tomatoes, chilli peppers also came from South America. About a quarter of the globe relishes chillies, with Indians embracing them as a staple. While local Indian mirchi or chillies might not be the same as those from their native country, everything is linked. Over centuries, they have travelled, adapted, and rooted themselves in countless regional and national cuisines, shaping flavours in ways both obvious and not so obvious. Some are fiery, some mild, yet all carry echoes of their original habitat. This is a story about connection, trade, and the subtle ways the chilli has changed India.
Chilli peppers originated in South America, growing wild, especially in its tropical regions, particularly around Bolivia and Brazil. Archaeological evidence from southwestern Ecuador shows starch grains of Capsicum (same family as chillies) on milling stones and cooking pots dating back approximately 6,000 years, making them one of humanity's oldest cultivated crops.
Five species of chilli peppers were domesticated across the Americas – Capsicum annuum from Mexico and northern Central America, Capsicum chinense from lower Amazonia, Capsicum frutescens from the Amazon Basin, Capsicum pubescens from the southern Andes, and Capsicum baccatum from Bolivia and Peru. Birds played a crucial role in spreading wild chillies, as they lack receptors for capsaicin (which decides how hot a chilli is) and dispersed undigested seeds by pooping in different lands.
When Christopher Columbus reached the Caribbean in 1492, searching for India in hopes of the black pepper trade, he encountered a fruit that burned the tongue like the precious Piper nigrum. Columbus dubbed these plants ‘pepper’ (pimiento), beginning centuries of confusion between unrelated plants. On his second voyage in 1493, he brought chillies back to Spain along with other New World treasures.
The Spanish were not very enthusiastic about chillies, just like with other Latin American finds like tomatoes (they thought tomatoes were poisonous). Chillies languished in gardens as exotic finds rather than being used in cooking. Europeans were bad with heat (something that has not changed), and found chillies unpalatable. There was even an instance of a 16th-century English botanist who claimed chillies could kill dogs.
While Spain hesitated, Portugal recognised the chilli's potential. The Portuguese were obsessed with controlling the spice trade, which had made Venetian merchants fabulously wealthy. Black pepper was so valuable that it virtually became a currency in medieval Europe, used for rent, dowries, and taxes. When Constantinople fell to the Ottomans in 1453, traditional overland spice routes were disrupted, launching the Age of Exploration.
In 1498, Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama succeeded where Columbus had failed, reaching Calicut on India's Malabar Coast by sailing around Africa. He departed with ships laden with black pepper, selling it at enormous profit. By 1510, the Portuguese captured Goa, establishing their Asian headquarters on India's spice-rich west coast.
Within 30 years of Vasco da Gama's arrival, at least three different types of chilli plants were growing around Goa. The chillies probably arrived from Brazil via Lisbon and were initially called ‘Pernambuco pepper’ after the Brazilian region. Portuguese traders recognised their commercial value and actively promoted them along their extensive trade networks.
A Portuguese official serving in India from 1500-1516 reported that the new spice was welcomed by Indian cooks who, already accustomed to pungent black pepper and biting ginger, produced spicy foods. As Indians already loved spicy foods, the chilli fit right in, almost like a fated homecoming.
For millennia before the Portuguese arrival, Indian cooks used pippali (Indian long pepper) to provide pungency to curries, and to a lesser extent, black pepper. Pippali had long, slender, wrinkled fruits rather than round berries. It was exported from southern India nearly 4,000 years ago and was used to add heat to food before chillies arrived.
Unlike black pepper, which was only cultivated in the Malabar region, chillies were resistant to almost all climatic conditions in India. They thrived in the tropical heat, grew prolifically in gardens, and cost almost nothing to produce. Within decades, they spread from Goa throughout the subcontinent.
By the end of the 18th century, chillies were widely grown and had been adopted into Indian cuisines, ultimately pushing black pepper from its position of controlling world trade. The speed of this transformation was so complete that botanists initially believed chillies were native to India or Indochina.
Modern India produces over 400 varieties of chillies, from the mild Byadgi to the scorching Bhut Jolokia (Ghost Pepper) that once held the world's hottest pepper title. Then there’s a preference for fresh green chillies in the North to dried red chillies in the South, whether used whole, ground or crushed. So, here are some dishes that are unthinkable without chillies.
Adescendant of the Portuguese dish carne de vinha d'alhos, vindaloo transformed when Goan cooks substituted local palm vinegar for wine and added up to 20 dried chillies to the marinade. Other ingredients include garlic, ginger and spices such as cumin, cloves and cardamom. Typically, lamb or pork is cooked in a fiery red, spicy, tangy curry.
Named after the hot Guntur chillies prized for their colour, this Andhra dish is quite fiery. These chillies are roasted then ground with coriander, cumin, fennel and coconut into a thick paste that coats marinated chicken. The gravy is quite aromatic too, often made with peanuts, sesame or poppy seeds and coconut to give the gravy more body.
Moving to the extreme east, there’s the Naga pork curry made with Naga chillies (like Bhut Jolokia or Naga Mircha), some of the world’s hottest chillies. These give the dish its searing heat and bold flavour. Cooked traditionally with pork, garlic and ginger, and sometimes bamboo shoots, the chillies infuse a smokiness and sharp flavour that dominates the rich meat and a mouth-tingling broth.
Rajasthan's ‘red meat’ curry uses Mathania chillies from Jodhpur, known for their distinct smokiness and vibrant red colour. The dish uses garlic, yoghurt and whole spices. It uses mutton or game meat that is slow‑cooked, and intense heat was a purposeful addition to mask the strong flavours of hunted deer and boar.
Kolhapur's signature curry uses lavangi mirchi, small intensely hot local red chillies that are dry roasted, combined with roasted coriander, cumin, sesame, poppy seeds, and dried coconut ground into a paste. A tempering of Kashmiri chilli powder roasted in ghee (called tarri) gets poured over the finished curry, adding a crimson sheen and another layer of heat.
Today, it's impossible to imagine Indian cuisine without chillies. A spice that arrived as foreign cargo just 500 years ago now defines the taste of a subcontinent. The chilli conquered India so completely that it erased the memory of its own arrival – a testament to how perfectly this fruit matched Indian cuisine. What began as a Portuguese ambition became an essential ingredient in the world's most complex cuisine.
