You say chillimato, I say tomilli… the chilli crossed with a tomato

FOR home cooks who like spicy food, getting the perfect balance of tomatoes and chilli peppers is a fine art.

Now the job could be made easier with a cross between a hot chilli pepper and a tomato ... but agreeing on the vegetable’s name could be a little trickier.

Currently called a ‘chillimato’ or ‘tomilli’, it is being developed by scientists taking advantage of the fact that chillis and tomatoes are distant cousins that split off from a common ancestor 19million years ago.

Chillis evolved to build up their defences, creating fiery chemicals called capsaicinoids to put off small animals looking to eat them. These make our eyes water and tongues burn, but tickle the taste buds of those who like spicy food.

Chilli seeds are scattered by birds, which are immune to their heat. Tomatoes, meanwhile, evolved to be tasty to smaller animals, helping to spread them far and wide.

A combination of the two plants is now in development, having been made possible by the recent completion of the DNA sequence of chillis. Researchers at the Federal University of Vicosa in Brazil say a spicy tomato is not their main aim – but it could be one result of their work.

The team is principally seeking to produce capsaicinoids in tomatoes. The chemicals have nutritional and antibiotic properties and are used in painkillers – as well as pepper spray. Agustin Zsogon, a geneticist at the university, whose work is published in the journal Trends in Plant Science, said: ‘Engineering the capsaicinoid genetic pathway to the tomato would make it easier and cheaper to produce this compound.’