One of my favorite ingredients is crushed red pepper or red pepper flakes. I cook with them all the time. As the name implies, it is made from hot, dried and crushed red chili peppers and usually there is a high ratio of seeds, intensifying the heat of the peppers. Red pepper flakes are popular when used as a pizza topping and in spaghetti sauces but they are also used pickling, chowders, gumbos, and sausage.
Red pepper flakes have quite a history too. Chili peppers have been a part of the human diet in the Americas since at least 7500 BC. There is archaeological evidence at sites located in southwestern Ecuador that chili peppers were domesticated more than 6000 years ago, and is one of the first cultivated crops in the Americas that is self-pollinating.
Christopher Columbus was one of the first Europeans to encounter them in the Caribbean. He called them "peppers" because they were similar in taste but not in appearance to the Old World black peppers. After Columbus, chilies were cultivated around the globe. Diego Alvarez Chanca, a physician on Columbus' second voyage to the West Indies in 1493, brought the first chili peppers to Spain, and first wrote about their medicinal effects in 1494.
Lisa
I want to share one of my fave recipes using red pepper flakes. It's simple, fast, and delicious. First open a 2 oz. tin of anchovy fillets, rinse and drain off the olive oil. Next heat up about 3 tablespoons of olive oil in a big frying pan. Add the anchovies and mix until dissolved, then add red pepper flakes (make as spicy as you like), and finely chopped garlic. Then add cooked pasta, any kind you like and mix. Throw some fresh parsley on top and mangia bene!
Enjoy,
Lisa
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