On this episode of the East Asia Now podcast, Professor Brian Dott of Whitman College discusses how he got into studying Chinese history through his father’s colleagues and how he decided to study the history of chile pepper in China. He discusses his book, The Chile Pepper in China: A Cultural Biography, and how difficult it is to trace how an American-originating food became integral to Chinese food. Along with it being a flavor, he reveals how the chile pepper became important to Chinese cultural practices and class identity.