Omnivore

We are what we eat.

This is the oldest and truest recipe I know of.

By that measure,

I'm a bushel of blackberries picked as a child in the meadows of Macedonia.

I'm also wild garlic, foraged as a young chef

from the forest floor along the coast of Denmark.

I'm a pinch of salt skimmed from distant tides,

powered by the mineral that has shaped society for millennia.

All of these bites have brought me here, to noma, my restaurant in Copenhagen,

where I've spent the last 20 years on a journey with my team

to learn everything we can about the ingredients that feed us.

But ingredients do more than feed us.

They bind and divide us.

They decipher and define us.

They fuel economies,

power politics,

and unlock hidden truths about who we are and where we're going.

This is the story of everyday items

that have changed the world in ways most of us have never considered.

Add them all up, and you get a recipe for humanity.

At the heart of that recipe, is an ingredient

that forever burned in my mind the transformative powers of food,

and that's where this journey begins.

When I was growing up in Macedonia,

I remember the men in our village that carried chile in their pockets.

We'd gather around the table for long feasts,

and in between bites of roast chicken and rice,

they'd take tiny nibbles from the spicy peppers.

I was captivated by this strange ingredient

and how something so small can be so powerful.

It felt like a gateway to a world I knew nothing about.

For years afterwards, I dreamed of chile.

What would it do to me?

What mysteries would this strange ingredient unravel?

What waited for me on the other end of that first taste

of chile?

Chiles were born here in the Amazon basin millions of years ago.

Beautiful and seductive as chiles may be, they probably sting for a reason.

To keep hungry animals from destroying the precious seeds inside.

One of nature's genius designs.

The animal world responded and left chiles alone.

Well, not all animals.

Birds.

The only species impervious to the burn of capsaicin.

The other animal, us. Humans.

Mobile, resourceful and gluttons for punishment.

In the beaks of birds and the bellies of boats,

chile spread from its birthplace in the Amazon across the planet.

In 1493, Columbus returned with tidings of a new world

and a handful of pepper plants.

By the 1500s,

the Portuguese brought chiles to the Far East and changed food forever.

Five hundred years later,

and this spicy fruit has become part of our identity.

A taste of what it means to be human,

to experience pain in pursuit of pleasure,

to always push our limits.

How hot is a chile pepper?

Dr. Wilbur Scoville wanted to know back in 1912,

so he diluted the chiles with sugar-water

and counted how many drops it took before the burn went away.

This became the method for measuring the heat in all chiles.

The Scoville scale.

This is a trip from the mildest foothills to the spiciest peaks

where every stop reveals a new layer of heat,

a new relationship to spice,

and a new dimension of us.

The Serbian string pepper, commonly used to make paprika

is part of the most ubiquitous species of chiles, Capsicum annuum.

At just 250 Scoville units,

this mild, fruity pepper is more of a kiss than a bite.

In the heart of Serbia,

not far from the dinner table where I first discovered chile,

you'll find a place where peppers dominate daily life.

The village is called Donja Lokošnica,

and each of its 1,200 citizens

produce an average of three tons of paprika peppers a year.

Dried in great, red theater curtains on every sun-exposed surface in town.

For the people of this tight-knit community,

paprika is not a powder that gathers dust in the pantry,

but a vibrant spice that colors their identity and powers their survival.

The people from Lokošnica can't imagine

life without the string pepper.

WELCOME TO THE KINGDOM OF PAPRIKA

The pepper is the best here in Lokošnica.

We gave our seeds to other villages.

The string pepper couldn't grow there.

I don't know why.

Maybe this land is somewhat special. Maybe it's the climate.

Something has to be special.

Let's get another one.

Women usually do the stringing. Men know how to do it, but they don't.

It's too hard for them.

My right shoulder still hurts.

We use garlands to dry our peppers.

We string it traditionally.

The pepper business is more than a full-time job.

So, we don't stop.

The main producers are Marina and Boban. They are my daughter and son-in-law.

Tell Boban he can unload it now. There's enough space.

They are in charge.

And my grandson Danijel works with them too.

Shake it a little.

Every generation of my family were farmers.

My grandfather, father and others were all involved.

So I'm going to continue it as well.

I started working with my family when I was in eighth grade.

I help them as much as I can.

It's not easy.

My husband, older son, and I are always in the field.

We are busy around the clock.

Should we roast some more?

I was born into peppers.

I've spent my whole life with peppers, and I make a living from peppers.

I have to learn how to do this.

You will learn, but first you have to get rid of those long nails.

As the saying goes, I was raised on peppers and lard.

There are stories that the pepper came from South America...

and they left it to be handed down from generation to generation.

Sometimes we do stuffed peppers,

or minced, or we grind them up for barbecue.

The pot has to go on the stove so we can fry ajvar.

We worry deeply about the next 15 to 20 years.

Young people are not keen on doing agriculture in general.

They are getting other jobs.

Year after year, we have fewer producers.

Should I add sugar and salt?

Yes, add them.

It's delicious.

This is so good.

Amazing.

Let's eat.

Good ajvar...

Young people are leaving and going to work in companies.

Farming is tough, physical work.

And the profit is small.

They don't want to farm anymore.

They would rather work in business.

Most of my peers would never do this.

I've also tried to work in a company.

But it was just not for me.

This is a critical moment in our food system.

As small family growers struggle to compete with industrial farms,

Danijel's generation will be the one to decide

the fate of some of our most important ingredients

and treasured traditions.

My son has a genuine interest in agriculture.

It's never difficult for him to work.

I am really glad for him to stay if that's what he wants.

I told him, "It will be your decision, and we'll support you."

He will choose his destiny.

This pepper is of superb quality,

and it would be a shame if we don't preserve it.

Ladies and gentlemen,

dear guests from the villages and from afar,

welcome to the Sixteenth Paprika Day Festival.

This day is dedicated to one of the most famous vegetables in the region:

the renowned Leskovac paprika pepper.

For centuries,

this village has kept the ancient recipe of cultivation alive

and produces the juiciest and healthiest paprika in the world.

We've joined together

to improve the quality and quantity,

and above all to struggle less and live longer.

I believe that this is better for me.

I'd like to continue what my family has been doing for years.

In its purest form,

the tiny, shiny tabasco pepper hits at 50,000 Scoville units.

This is a force to be reckoned with.

And yet most people will only taste the tabasco pepper

in its milder liquid form.

Y'all ready?

- Y'all ready? - Yeah, let's go then.

If somebody started off making a rival sauce today using our method,

they would not be able to sell any sauce for about five years.

No. Actually, we didn't pick this little piece.

As we say, from seed to sauce it takes five years.

That includes the three year aging process.

It's a time-honored tradition, and we're not just saying that.

I grew up between Macedonia

and one of the least spicy countries in the world, Denmark.

Love it or loathe it, for many years Tabasco was the only game in town.

A gateway to a spicier world.

I doubt anyone had a clue about the source of this mysterious red sauce.

This is the story of the family and their 150-year-old recipe

from a southern Louisiana salt marsh that helped set the world on fire.

It takes a very special island A very special sun

And some very special peppers To make the one

Tabasco, Tabasco

The original liquid pepper seasoning

Some people think that Tabasco means every pepper sauce,

which just isn't the case.

There is only one Tabasco,

the original liquid pepper sauce made at Avery Island, Louisiana.

So, Edmund McIlhenny, the inventor of Tabasco,

kept meticulous records by nature.

This is one of two notebooks containing memos about his outgoing mail.

Well, one of these, right here,

to Hugh Auchincloss in New York City on January 18th, 1868,

it says, "thanking him for a lens for my microscope,