The spices that moved the world

Yuzu koshō

Yuzu zest, green or red chile, and salt — a Kyushu ferment that wakes a pot of nabe.

Mulato chile

A poblano that ripened and dried into chocolate and dried fruit — mole's dark cousin of ancho.

Habanero

Tropical fruit and a serious burn: the chinense chile of the Yucatán and the Caribbean.

Kashmiri chile

The red that colors a rogan josh without turning it into a dare.

Choricero

The flesh that goes into Spanish chorizo and a spoon of salsa.

Guindilla

Spanish slender chile, pickled or dried, next to a Basque steak.

Calabrian chile

Oil-packed southern Italian heat — fruity, medium, on pizza and pasta.

Cayenne

The thin red heat a French or Moroccan pot uses when it wants fire without a dried chile ritual.

Espelette

Piment d'Espelette: the Basque red that seasons a French kitchen without shouting cayenne.

Ají panca

Peru's berry-dark chile — mild heat, raisin and smoke, the other half of ají amarillo.

Güero chile

Pale Mexican chile — banana-pepper cousin, mild, for escabeche and rajas.

Chile piquín

Tiny wild-leaning Mexican chile, sharp and seedy, for salsas and a salt rim.

Padrón pepper

Flash-fried Galician peppers: most mild, one a surprise.

Piquillo pepper

Sweet roasted Navarre peppers, jarred, stuffed, or torn into a salad.

Cascabel chile

The rattle: seeds loose in a round shell, nutty and medium, for salsas and adobos.

Morita chile

Small smoked jalapeño, fruitier than a long chipotle mora, at home in adobo.

Dried chile

Whole dried pods — the starting point of a Mexican salsa and a Chinese oil.

Green chile

Fresh heat, unnamed variety: the instruction to add a living pepper.

Red chile

Ripe fresh or dried heat — the other half of 'green chile' in a recipe line.

Chile

The generic heat the books still write when a kitchen means flakes, powder, or a dried red.

Walnut oil

Pressed walnut: a French salad oil that goes rancid if you treat it like a fry fat.

Annatto oil

Achiote bloomed in fat — the orange sheen of Caribbean rice and Yucatecan recado.

Scallion oil

Oil poured over cut greens until they smell like a night market.

Sunflower oil

The eastern European and everyday fry oil the books reach for when olive is too loud.