I just learned that peppers originated from Mexico during the Columbian exchange. As spicy food is a huge part of Southern Asian cuisine today, I can't imagine what it would be like without peppers. Did they eat spicy food at all? Did they use other spices like black peppers or Sichuan peppercorns or ginger? Or was there no spicy food at all(the horror...)
Black Pepper is native to much of Asia, and was often used as the primary spice in parts of India. Other spices such as cloves, nutmeg, cinnamon, ginger were also heavily used. The oldest text about cooking I know of from South Asia is the Soopa Shastra from the early 1500s. That might be a place to look to find out what Indian food was like before the Colombian exchange.
From this post by /u/gnikivar2.