Work with me here. It is my understanding that peppers come from the Americas. Now, I'm a fan of Thai food in general, but I can't fathom it without some seriously hot peppers as a cuisine.
So, for example, if I was living in Thailand in say, the 1200s, what would my food look and taste like? For bonus points, what about other places that are fairly regularly on the spicy scale, like India and Vietnam?
When I look up "authentic" recipes, I get things that are using obviously post-Exchange ingredients. With other cuisines, I can either figure it out (use turnips instead of potatoes, you moron), or I can substitute (I'm sorry, I'm not adding rue to a dish). But it seems like my research has failed when it comes to those particular areas and it would be interesting to see what things would be like before the capiscum.
Hi, while more can always be said, this section of our FAQ or this section of our VFAQ may be of interest to you.
As a further question, tomatoes, potatoes, and corn are all new-world species, but are also common to a lot of old-world cuisines. What did Italian food look like before the tomato, or curry?