Science – Gatersleben – Early World Trade: A Study of Successful Vegetables and Sweet Peppers – Knowledge

Gatersleben (dpa) – Whether in haute cuisine, at barbecues, or as a delicacy – paprika is part of food all over the world as a vegetable or condiment. They are easy to produce, preserve and transport in dried form: thanks to these properties, the genus paprika (paprika), which also includes hot peppers and peppers, was marketed early by merchants in large parts of the world and was one of the first examples of globalized trade.

This was reported by an international research team with German participation in the “Proceedings” of the US National Academy of Sciences (“PNAS”). “We have generated a huge genetic fingerprint of more than ten thousand pepper samples from gene banks around the world and used this data to investigate the history of this vegetable and spice,” said Pasquale Tripodi of the Italian research institute CREA. Study authors.

The study was coordinated by Nils Stein, Head of the Genomics Research Group for Genetic Resources at the Leibniz Institute for Plant Genetics and Crop Plant Research (IPK) in Gattersleben in Saxony-Anhalt and a full professor at the University of Göttingen. The aim of the research was to obtain more accurate information about the economic spread of the most important types of hot pepper. This has led to a major change in culinary traditions in many parts of the world.

The peppers examined came from 130 countries on five continents. “The results paint the picture of pepper as a highly desirable cultural asset spread throughout the world along major land and sea trade routes,” said the other lead author, Mark Timothy Rabanos Wallace, of the Leibniz Institute. Of course, the main factor in the importance of red pepper is the spices. “This is especially true in Europe, where hot spices were scarce, and imported black pepper was expensive.”

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