Chili Peppers Have Ancient History (link to article)

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By LAURAN NEERGAARD, Associated Press Writer

Who says food fads can't last? Thousands of years before the advent of Tex-Mex,

ancient

Americans were spicing up stew with red hot chili peppers.

 

New fossil evidence shows prehistoric people from southern Peru up to the

Bahamas were

cultivating varieties of chilies millennia before Columbus' arrival brought the

spice to

world cuisine.

 

The earliest traces so far are from southwestern Ecuador, where families fired

up meals

with homegrown peppers about 6,100 years ago.

 

The discovery, reported Friday in the journal Science, suggests early New World

agriculture

was more sophisticated than once thought. . . . .

 

[READ ON: http://news./s/ap/20070215/ap_on_sc/ancient_peppers ]

 

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