|
The learned Greek Priscus travelled with the Byzantines from Constantinople to Pannonia as an envoy to the Huns in the 5th century AD. In one of his journals he describes a feast he attended given by Attila, the Scourge of God, and mentions a dish that appears to have featured peppers! "The table was covered with plates full of game, and in particular there were many different types of pepper stews!"... Whether the stew was merely spiced with peppers, as we know them, or was some type of (ground) pepper is not quite clear.
People have been using peppers in their diets for more than five hundred years. It is believed that they originally came from southern Mexico and the tropical parts of the Americas. They were cultivated by the Incas, Aztecs and Mayas. Some historians believe, however, that peppers, came to us from Africa. In Europe, this plant was first mentioned in a letter by humanist Peter Martin in 1493, in which he recounts, "Christopher Columbus brought from America two types of peppers." They were initially cultivated as decorative plants in Spain and Portugal, and then carried to France and Italy. They probably arrived to the Balkans via Turkey, because in these parts they were first called Turkish peppers. They were soon accepted throughout Europe, and were believed to have salubrious effects. During a period when terrible epidemics raged, they were used as a substitute for aromatic Oriental herbs, which cost as if they were made of pure gold. The famed Linzbauer Codex Saniterio-Medicinalis stated that the "Serbs in southern Hungary are spared ‘vampirism’, are not attacked by vampires because they spice their food with ‘red Turkish pepper’ – peppers!"…
 Red peppers, or aleva (means red in Turkish), are cultivated in Serbia on some 2000 hectares. The northern Banat and Bačka regions account for as much as 90 percent of this area. An average crop yields some eight tonnes per hectare. In the region around the Tisa River, from Szeged via Banat to Timisoara, runs a stretch of marshy high ground some 50 kilometres long with the highest number of sunny days and the lowest rainfall in Central Europe. These include northern Banat heaths with low, steppe-like shrubbery. In the past, people sewed old types of wheat on the strip’s arable land, wheat that had no match in 1493 Europe. The crops did not yield much but their grain was red, hard and glistened like a pearl. Flour from this wheat was purchased by foreign buyers who mixed it with their own to improve its quality. Merchants from Trieste used it for Italian macaroni, and in Vienna and Pest it was used for making the finest confectionery and baked goods. Due to its high insolation, this strip of land affords cultivation of red peppers without equal in Europe. Besides peppers, this soil also favorus growing onions and other vegetables of excellent quality, as well as herbs and aromatic plants – mint, fennel and chamomile – with high azulene content... In the past the abundance of sun had led people around Novi Kneževac to even try their hand at growing rice! A wise man once said, "Rice could be grown only on soil that allows one to sleep completely naked on it for three consecutive summer nights." In fact, information has come down to us that an Italian did grow rice in Banat during the Turkish occupation...
 – It is no coincidence that vegetable processing plants and sections such as those at Novi Kneževac, Mol, Horgoš, Kikinda, Bečej... were set up precisely on this strip of land. At Makovo in Hungary, there is a monument to the onion, while Kneževac has a monument glorifying red peppers, done by sculptor Sava Halugin – says the man who knows much about red peppers - Mile Klepić, Novi Kneževac Aleva factory director. – Onions from Egypt or India differ from those grown in the village of Djala, Vrbica or Crna Bara... The peppers-growing European countries include (southern) Hungary, Spain, Macedonia, Greece, Bulgaria, Israel... Germany, England and some other countries do no grow red peppers, and therein lies our chance. In the same way Central European countries once purchased Banatproduced ‘marshland wheat’ to improve the quality of their flour, so today they purchase red peppers from us to improve the quality and colour of red peppers imported from Spain, Israel and South American countries... Due to the scorching sun, Spanish peppers are dark brown. The same holds also for those from Africa and South America. Our peppers are bright red. The quality of northern Banat’s marshy soil combined with the sun help produce onions and red peppers of unsurpassed quality on the international scale! This has been confirmed by Hungary’s red pepper and onions experts after a century of study.
 For two centuries, the people in northern Banat’s Novi Kneževac, Djala, Krstur, Banatsko Arandjelovo, Siget, Crna Bara, Mokrin, Jazovo, Sajani, Vrbica, Sanada, Podlokanj, Majdan, Rabe have been producing red peppers, onions and garlic, poppy seeds and other vegetables. In some of these villages, namely - Vrbica, Banatsko Arandjelovo or Majdan, for instance, one can still find old houses walled with stamped earth with gables made of radially placed wooden planks with a symbolically carved motive of the sun. In this way, the locals – not unlike ancient pagans – expressed their gratitude to this star for its unsparing rays bathing their fields planted with peppers, onions, poppy, parsley and other green vegetables. There are few places left where one can still see such vestiges of village architecture from the age of Franz Joseph...
– Although it has become indispensable as spice, the red pepper is also a medicine. It is endowed with multiple salubrious effects. As science puts it, ‘it proceeds from being health friendly to the beauty of body and soul.’ Also, it has five times more vitamin C than lemon! It helps digestion, is an antioxidant, and cleanses the body of free radicals. It prevents atherosclerosis, removes cholesterol from the blood, and helps alleviate heart attack and stroke as well as cardiovascular diseases. Thanks to vitamin PP, it dilates blood vessels. According to scientific findings, capsaicin (the ‘hot’ component) forces 'tumor cells to commit suicide'. Of late, science has come to believe that capsaicin can also acts as an aphrodisiac... Nutritionist Dr Jagoda Jorga, a health food expert, has claimed this at one of the Alevaorganised round tables devoted to red peppers – Mile Klepić notes.
 We stayed in Novi Kneževac, the Home of the Red Pepper, at gathering time. About 150 years ago, as growing red peppers was gaining momentum, this small town on the bank of the Tisa River must have looked like an aristocratic nest found in Russian literature. Six or so wealthy and influential families bearing titles of nobility – counts, barons… came to stay on this small area under interesting circumstances. These included the Djurković- Servijski, the Maldegam, the Šulpe, the Fajlič, the Miokov, the Talijan families. They built their summer houses, mansions, courts hee; had parks with exotic plant life arranged but also fostered vegetable- and peppers-growing.
Now, tractors with trailers laden with red peppers can be seen moving along the streets. It’s red peppers’growers heading for Aleva. In the spacious courtyard of this plant, it’s as if someone had spread a thick ‘red carpet’ to receive important guests! The courtyard was in fact covered with tonnes and tonnes of red peppers, drying in the sun. So much intense colour, spice, medication and vitamin C in one place cannot be found anywhere else! A huge ‘red sea’… |
