Brownielocks and The 3 Bears
Present
Chiken Livers, Corn, and Chili Peppers, Oh My!
The following food items didn't have enough to validate an entire page devoted to them alone. So I combined them here.
Chicken Livers
Crostini de Fegato is a popular Tuscany snack made of chicken livers. This dish is said to have evolved from an old Etruscan method of foretelling the future. Back in the ancient Roman times, they kept a lot of roosters that they believed to be prophetic. How? Before every Roman battle, they offer these roosters some bowl of grain. If the birds ate heartily, victory was assured. If they didn't then they believed they'd be defeated.
General P. Claudius Pulcher, before one important battle, tossed some chickens who apparently weren't too hungry into the sea yelling, "May they drink if they don't want to eat." General Pulcher was then defeated.
In some Italian homes, during Christmastime only, eating chicken livers is traditional to help insure a prosperous year ahead.
Corn
Corn has a long history throughout the world. Native Americans worshiped corn. So, when they saw the Europeans feeding it to their horses, they almost attacked them for blasphemy. Now, the white men weren't purposely trying to offend anyone. But, they just didn't worship it like the Indians did. The early colonials living in the New World, really relied on corn to feed them too. So, they didn't totally snub it. They just assigned it to those of lesser class. While the gentlemen's homes ate bread made of wheat, the servants ate corn bread.
Also, up until the early 19th century, no American cookbook had any single corn recipe printed in it. Corn was pretty scarce at the dinner table and was socially snubbed.
In fact, corn's major role today is as "junk food" (snacks), as animal feed and as an additive in another food to create more bulk. Corn's social prejudice is the origin of why we often term something that's "corny" as being trite and unimportant.
Chili Peppers
Although we think that pepper spray might be a new defense weapon of the modern times, it really goes back 500 years ago to the time of Columbus. He wasn't too welcomed by the natives. So much so that they threw a form of "chili bomb" at Columbus' fortress. These bombs were calabashes full of smoldering habaneros. The natives knew that burning chilies emitted gases that made it extremely difficult to breathe. They wanted to drive these Europeans out of their land!
For generations, the Native Americans, Mayans, Aztecs, etc. have used chilies for keeping people in control. The Mayans are said to have disciplined their children by holding them over smoldering jalapeños. Panamanians strung them on their canoe prows to discourage marauding sharks. And, when the Incas had to deal with European invaders, they threw burning piles of rocoto chilies (name implies they had power to raise the dead btw) as the two armies fought. The Hopi Indians put chilies on their doorsteps in belief that by doing so it keeps out white spirits. Today, some people still hang chili crosses over crib to ward off evil.
What makes chili peppers so powerful? They contain a chemical called capsaicin that causes both an extreme adrenaline rush and then causes a release of endorphins to create in some a state of euphoria. The government of Peru banned hot pepper sauce in their prisons due to this adrenaline rush.
A few years ago, there was a very hot salsa called "Homicide Salsa" that had on it's label a drawing of a murder victim's outline (like you see on the cop shows). This salsa was withdrawn from shelves in Chicago because a preacher claimed it glamorized violence. I guess later it was allowed to be back on the market.
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Source: "In The Devil's
Garden. A Sinful History of Forbidden Food"
By Stewart Lee Allen
Ballantine Publishing Group © 2002
