Capsicum frutescens

chilli • bird chilli • Tabasco pepper

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Capsicum frutescens L. (Solanaceae); brandrissie (Afrikaans); la jiao (Chinese); piment, cayenne (French); Tabasco, Chili Pfeffer (German); mirch (Hindi); peperoncino (Italian); kidachi tougarashi (Japanese); lada merah, cabai merah (Malay); peri-peri, pimentão (Portuguese); guindilla, ajíi (Spanish); pilipili, piri piri, peri peri (Swahili); phrik kheenuu (Thai); dar biber (Turkish); öt (Vietnamese)

DESCRIPTION Fruits are typically small (less than 25 mm or 1 in. long), bright red when ripe, oval to oblong, invariably very hot and resemble the wild forms of the species.1

THE PLANT A frost-sensitive perennial with greenish-white flowers and small, red fruits typically borne in an upright position.1,2 The best-known forms3,4 are the African bird’s eye chilli (piri piri or peri peri, kambuzi pepper), Indonesian tjabe rawit, Philippine siling labuyo, Brazilian malagueta and especially American ‘Tabasco’. There are three more sources of hot chillies. The South American C. chinense (“yellow lantern chili”) has dull white flowers and variously coloured and shaped fruits,2 including ‘Habanero’ (once considered to be the hottest chilli in the world) and ‘Trinidad Moruga Scorpion’ (the current champion, measured at over 2 million SHU on the Scoville scale). The Central American and Bolivian aji (C. baccatum – aji is the Caribbean word for chilli) is a distinct species with the petals spotted at the base2 and includes the popular ‘Aji Amarillo’, ‘Bishop’s Crown’ and ‘Peppadew’. The Andean rocoto or tree chilli (C. pubescens) has purple flowers, hairy leaves and globose red fruits with black seeds (cultivars include ‘Canario’ and ‘Manzano’).2

ORIGIN Central and South America.1–3 It is naturalized in Africa – piri piri is the southern African and later Portuguese name given to the “new pepper” introduced by the Portuguese.1

CULTIVATION See C. annuum. C. frutescens has apparently not been domesticated before colonial times1 and is still much less widely cultivated than C. annuum. ‘Tabasco’ is grown on a large scale in Louisiana, USA.4 Capsicum pubescens is somewhat more cold tolerant.

HARVESTING Chilli fruits are hand-harvested from cultivated plants or from naturalized wild plants (bird pepper).

CULINARY USES The hot, spicy flavour is an essential part of Mexican, West Indian, Indian and Indonesian dishes and has become very popular in most parts of the world. The source of the pungency is mostly C. annuum (often ‘Cayenne’ or ‘Serrano’) and not C. frutescens. Examples of spicy sauces and hot spice blends include American Tabasco sauce, Chinese öt, Ethiopian berbere, North African harissa, Indian masala, and many more. Fresh, dried or powdered chillies (red pepper, cayenne pepper or paprika powder) are widely used to flavour stews, meat dishes, potatoes, cheese and eggs. Famous dishes include Mexican chilli con carne (beef and red beans), Portuguese peri-peri chicken, Hungarian goulash (stew with paprika) and various Mediterranean specialities such as gazpacho, piperade and ratatouille. Capsicum baccatum has been used in Yucatan and Caribbean-style cooking for centuries and is a popular condiment in Peruvian cuisine (together with red onion and garlic), where it is mainly used fresh in sauces (e.g. huancaina) and with meat (e.g. aji de gallina). It is usually dried and ground for Bolivian dishes (e.g. fricase paceno). The mild fruits of ‘Peppadew’ are a popular condiment in South Africa.

FLAVOUR COMPOUNDS Capsaicin is the main pungent principle with smaller amounts of dihydrocapsaicin.4 (See Capsicum annuum for the chemical structures of the two main compounds.)

NOTES Capsaicin is the active ingredient in pepper sprays, used in riot control and personal self-defence products.

1. McLeod, M.J., Guttman, S.I., Eshbaugh, W.H. 1982. Early evolution of chili peppers (Capsicum). Economic Botany 36: 361–368.

2. Walsh, B.M., Hoot, S.B. 2001. Phylogenetic relationships of Capsicum (Solanaceae) using DNA sequences from two noncoding regions: the chloroplast atpB-rbcL spacer region and nuclear waxy introns. International Journal of Plant Science 162: 1409–1418. 2001.

3. DeWitt, D., Bosland, P.W. 2009. The complete chile pepper book. Timber Press, Portland.

4. Farrel, K.T. 1999. Spices, condiments and seasonings. Aspen Publishers, Gaithersburg, USA.