RED HOT (OR SWEET) CHILLI PEPPERS
Hot stuff coming through! Described as ‘the extrovert of the fruit world’, chillies are often our number one choice for adding heat, spice and flavour to meals. But not every chilli will set your world on fire.
Maybe people wonder: are chillies a spice, a vegetable or a fruit? They are in fact a fruit that is consumed as a vegetable to spice things up!
The first thing that comes to mind when thinking of chillies is their range of flavour experiences, spanning from mild and refreshing, to hot, to an eye-watering experience that could numb tastebuds for a long time. Also known as chilli peppers, chillies are a staple ingredient in many cuisines. From China to the Middle East, from Greece to Spain via Italy, chillies are popular in the southern states of the US and of course, in South America.
Chilli pepper is so iconic in certain parts of the world that the classic Tex-Mex dish, chilli con carne, uses these little firecrackers as its main ingredient (just add beef mince and beans). Not all chilli pepper varieties have intolerable hot flavours, however; some can be sweet and grassy just like bell peppers.
Chilli peppers are a varieties of bell pepper, or capsicum or peperone. European traders in South America from the 15th century onwards appreciated the properties of these plants, how easy it was to breed and select new varieties, and to ultimately turn chilli peppers into a commercial crop for developing a new spice capable of competing with the long-established trade monopoly of black pepper (peppercorn). Hundreds of varieties of all shapes with dazzling red, yellow, green and black colours were introduced across the globe to enrich regional cuisines, grown to adapt to local conditions.
A few varieties, probably the least bred and grown in subtropical region, behave like perennials: the slender green branches mature into dead wood, lose the foliage and become dormant until spring. Most of the chilli peppers available at our latitudes are annual plants unless kept in glass houses as a decorative plant with low fruit-yielding expectations.
These days labels on both seed packets and seedlings come with a flavour heat scale, a wise piece of instruction to influence food applications.
Chilli pepper contains a substance called capsaicin, a naturally occurring chemical compound designed to deter insects from feeding on the fruit. Unfortunately, we are not immune from the irritant effects caused by the capsaicin if they touch any pain receptor of the body. Interestingly, birds are not affected by capsaicin, so they can feed on any type of chilli pepper without ever wondering: how hot is this chilli?