• Journal of the Korean Society of Food Culture
• /
• v.23 no.2
• /
• pp.293-300
• /
• 2008

It determines Chinese addiction to piquancy that the Chinese traditional food production laid excessively particular stress on agriculture coming into being long before in the history and the state of Chinese food living was that the people were very difficult to live. The history of Chinese addiction to piquancy could be traced back to prehistory. And in Chinese “hot” is separated from “peppery” and it refers in particular to the piquancy more than general peppery. The character of “Hot” appeared after Han Dynasty in Chinese. Capsicum was brought to China from the sea in the middle of Ming Dynasty. Then it surpassed the formers soon and became the most popular and addictive piquancy food in China. Capsicum has many names in China, such as “$F{\bar{a}}nji{\bar{a}}o$”, “$H{\bar{a}}iji{\bar{a}}o$”, “$L{\grave{a}}ji{\check{a}}o$”, “$L{\grave{a}}h{\breve{u}}$”, “$L{\grave{a}}zi$”, etc., and they indicate the geographical and humanistic character of the distribution. (eight books on preserving one’s health) is the earliest history record about capsicum in existent Chinese history record that was finished in 1591. In this article the author puts new opinion forward on the record in this book. It is because the hottest piquancy of capsicum, capsicum’s better adaptability and low cost to plant combine with Chinese piquancy addiction at large that capsicum can replace the status of pepper and other traditional peppery flavorings soon and cause worldwide attention to the Chinese piquancy addiction finally. The human common characters of unchangeable inertia, depending to fully grow addiction and aggrieved delight are the most important reasons to cause piquancy addiction that has formed a custom through long-repeated practice and this custom do not change with condition change. The unbalanced spread process of capsicum in China shows that the region is poorer and the addictive degree is deeper.