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Piment d’Ville – Red Chili Pepper Powder from California – 1.2 oz jar

A sweet, spicy, basque red chile powder. Locally grown from seeds originally imported from France. Hand harvested in Boonville, CA. Piment d’ville is the same variety of pepper known as piment d’espelette. In French, piment d’espelette translates to “peppers of espelette.” Traditionally produced around the town of Espelette in the Basque region of Southern France. The spice has gradually replaced black pepper in everyday Basque cooking. You’ll find yourself using piment d’ville on everything from popcorn to simple roast chicken or in a red chile cream sauce. It also works well with chocolate or on a cocktail glass. The plant, originally from Mexico and to a lesser extent South America, was introduced in France from the New World around the 16th century. After first being used medicinally, it has since become popular for preparing condiments and for the conservation of meat and ham. It is now a cornerstone of Basque cuisine, where it has gradually replaced black pepper and it is a key ingredient in piperade. Similar in heat to paprika, its robust peppery taste can be increased with roasting or pan searing and is commonly used in Basque food.

The Spice Route: A History (California Studies in Food and Culture)

The Spice Route is one of history’s greatest anomalies: shrouded in mystery, it existed long before anyone knew of its extent or configuration. Spices came from lands unseen, possibly uninhabitable, and almost by definition unattainable; that was what made them so desirable. Yet more livelihoods depended on this pungent traffic, more nations participated in it, more wars were fought for it, and more discoveries resulted from it than from any other global exchange. Epic in scope, marvelously detailed, laced with drama, The Spice Route spans three millennia and circles the world to chronicle the history of the spice trade. With the aid of ancient geographies, travelers’ accounts, mariners’ handbooks, and ships’ logs, John Keay tells of ancient Egyptians who pioneered maritime trade to fetch the incense of Arabia, Graeco-Roman navigators who found their way to India for pepper and ginger, Columbus who sailed west for spices, de Gama, who sailed east for them, and Magellan, who sailed across the Pacific on the exact same quest. A veritable spice race evolved as the west vied for control of the spice-producing islands, stripping them of their innocence and the spice trade of its mystique. This enthralling saga, progressing from the voyages of the ancients to the blue-water trade that came to prevail by the seventeenth century, transports us from the dawn of history to the ends of the earth.