Capsicum spp.
Chillies are the fruits of small herbaceous plants, principally Capsicum annuum, and Capsicum frutescens and Capsicum chinense which are native to the Americas.
Cherry chillis.
Capsicum is closely related to the tomato (Solanum lycopersicon), potato (Solanum tuberosum), aubergine/eggplant (Solanum melongena) and deadly nightshade (Atropa belladonna). The family these plants belong is renowned for synthesising interesting chemicals, like the deliriant atropine (the thing that about 10 of you per month search for on this site: I assume you're not interested in the biology the Solanaceae), scopolamine (travel sickness medicine) and solanine (green potato poison). The toxins that chilli peppers specialise in are called capsaicins. Chilli peppers themselves are technically berries: they typically have a waxy outer skin surrounding a crispy flesh to which the seeds are attached in a large air space in the middle of the fruit. The white bit to which the seeds are attached is called the placenta, and it's on this structure that the glands that secrete capsaicin are located. Incidentally, the seeds of chillies are not the hottest bit: it's actually the ribs of the placenta to which they are stuck.
Growing chillies is quite simple. They do need good light, and are best off in a greenhouse, but it's very simple to grow them from seed collected from chilli peppers even on a bright windowsill. Don't expect seeds collected from chillies to necessarily give you the same cultivar as a crop, since they may well have been cross-pollinated by other varieties. They prefer a moist but well drained compost (a soil-based loam, rather than a peat-based potting compost), you can make this using 2 parts of a horticultural compost mixed with one part of sharp horticultural sand, if a proper loam (like John Innes No. 2) is unavailable. Chilli plants are subtropical, so they will die or fail to germinate if the temperature falls much below 10°C: they prefer 20-25°C. Very high temperatures (above 32°C) will inhibit fruit set. They don't like to be waterlogged, and they don't like high humidity, which can encourage moulds. Apart from that they are quite easy: you may need to pollinate their flowers yourself if the plants are kept indoors away from bees, etc.
In the wild, the seeds of chillies are dispersed by birds. Many plants that exploit birds have red flowers or fruits, because insects can't see red, so it's a good choice for attracting vertebrates instead. Birds are unable to taste capsaicin, so they can eat the fruits with impunity, and the seeds pass straight through them and out the other end unharmed. However, if the seeds pass through a mammal's gut, they die. This is the reason that chillies lace their fruits with capsaicin: mammals (that's you) can taste the burn, and should therefore avoid the fruits. Although of course, some of use don't…
Capsaicin is structurally similar to vanillin, the main component of
vanilla.
Capsaicins and the Scoville scale
Capsaicin is 8-methyl-N-(2-hydroxy-3-methoxyphenyl)non-6-enamide. In its pure form, it is a red crystalline solid at room temperature. Structurally, it is related to the chemical vanillin, which gives vanilla its scent and flavour. The big fatty side chain sticking off the vanillin ring makes capsaicin quite insoluble in water, which is one of the reasons why drinking water to quench the burn is a waste of time. If you really want to stop the burn (and why would you want to do that?), the best bet is to drink milk, lassi or neat vodka: capsaicin is soluble in most fats and alcohol. The amount of capsaicin (and its chemical relatives, like dihydrocapsaicin) can be measured by complex chromatographic techniques, but the cheap-and-cheerful scale of heat for chillies is named after its inventor, one Mr Wilbur Scoville. Chillies are ground up and mixed with sugar water, then fed to a panel of tasters. The Scoville rating for the chilli is the number of parts of water you need to mix the chilli paste with to make it undetectable to the tasters. Pure capsaicin rates at about 16 000 000 Scoville, which is rather hot. Chillies range in heat from about 0 to 500 000 Scoville. Some of the more famous chillies are:
Pimento.
Pimento
0 Scoville. No fun here at all. Big bell peppers contain negligible capsaicin. Does anyone know whether chillies should be spelt chillies, chillis, chilies, chilis or chiles?
Ancho.
Ancho
1 000 Scoville. Anchos are a dried and sometimes smoked poblanos with have a sweet flavour. 1 000 Scoville is pretty cool as far as chillis go. Most of the milder chillies are cultivars of Capsicum annuum.
Jalapeño.
Jalapeño
5 000 Scoville. Jalapeños are very versatile: hot enough for a good kick, but still mild enough to use as a vegetable.
Cayenne.
Cayenne
50 000 Scoville. Cayennes are usually sold dried and ground as cayenne pepper. Tabascos are a similarly hot cultivar of Capsicum frutescens, which are unsurprisingly the main ingredient in Tabasco sauce.
Thai.
Thai
100 000 Scoville. Thai birdseye chillies are sometimes sold at Christmas as pot plants. I made the mistake of picking all the dead fruits off one in January when I was about 7, then spent all afternoon in absolute agony because I didn't know what they were, and rubbed my eyes.
Habanero.
Habanero
200 000 Scoville; some will even go up to 500 000 Scoville. These cultivars of Capsicum chinense have a strange, aromatic flavour and a clean but very intense heat. Scotch bonnets are another closely related lantern shaped chilli used to make Caribbean hot sauces. They are usually regarded as the hottest of the chillies, although there are some cultivars bred especially for pain which will got up to 1 million Scoville.
What chillies do
Chillies have been used in cookery for thousands of years, initially by Native and Mesoamericans, then later in the Old World: prior to this mustard (Brassica nigra), horseradish (Radicula armoracia) and pepper (Piper nigrum) were used to give food a kick. These don't contain capsaicin: the chemicals that give you the kick in these are quite different. In mustard and horseradish, two glycosides called myristin and sinigrin are present: when these are hydrolysed by the action of enzymes, they release allyl isothiocyanate. Onions and garlic (Allium spp.) release the similarly pungent allyl thiosulfinate when bruised. The alkaloid piperine is responsible for the heat of conventional pepper. All these compounds are relatively water soluble and volatile, which is why a glass of water and some deep breathing will fix most of the pain of OD-ing on these.
Chillies are different, because the active principle is very water insoluble. The main effect of chillies is the burning sensation you'll all be very familiar with. Capsaicin stimulates receptors on the tongue (and delicate mucous membranes elsewhere in your alimentary tract) to release calcium ions, which trigger pain signals to the brain along the trigeminal nerve. People who eat a lot of chillies gradually build up a tolerance to their effects, which is why an ancho will blow the head off someone who's never eaten chillies before, whereas a seasoned addict will be able to eat jalapeños like they were Smarties. A second side effect of the stimulation of pain receptors is the release of endorphins, which are peptides (tiny proteins) in the brain, which stimulate the same pain-killing receptors that heroin and morphine bind to. Hence the rush that many chilli stuffers get, which is similar to the runners' high that people who work-out a lot get.
The medical uses of capsaicins and chillies are quite varied. They have a warming effect on the skin if added topically, which is useful for aching joints, and related to this is their circulatory stimulatory effect: the flushing and sweating you get if you overdo them. Intestinal parasites don't like them any more than you ought to, so they have been used in herbal medicine to purge parasitic worms. Because they increase your pain threshold (by increasing the threshold stimulation nerves need before they start firing), they have also been used experimentally in the treatment of neuralgia. They also seem to help treat mouth ulcers. And they contain more vitamin C than citrus fruits.
A not very medical use of capsaicin has been in pepper sprays, which cause extreme pain when sprayed on mucous membranes, as anyone who has tried taking out contact lenses or handling their undercarriage after preparing chillies without first washing their hands very thoroughly will testify. Capsaicin is widely used as a mammal repellent: both in bird seed (squirrels don't like it), and in rubbish bin repellents to stop the local cats pulling fish heads out of your bin bags and all over your lawn. Another interesting application is as a marine antifoulant: the idea being that ships whose hulls are painted with chilli will be too 'hot' for barnacles to attach to.
Recipes
No chilli page would be complete without some things to do to get them into yourself. Here are a few ideas:
Hot sauce
There are probably as many recipes for this as there are for garam masala or the perfect martini, however, here's my take. You will need:
- 5 to 10 Scotch bonnet chillis
- 1 to 2 large red peppers (substitute 1 pepper for 5 chillis, if you want a less pungent sauce)
- 1 tbsp vegetable oil
- 1 large onion, roughly chopped
- 2 large carrots, diced (or equivalent in squashes)
- 2 tomatoes, chopped (or tinned equivalent)
- 1 large papaya, skinned, seeded, and roughly diced
- Knob of ginger rhizome, shredded
- 10 allspice berries
- 10 black peppercorns
- Couple of sprigs of thyme
- 4 tbsp sugar
- 50 mL cider vinegar
- Juice of 2 limes
Plus an untaintable (or expendable) chopping board, pan and large spoon, and a pair of rubber gloves. Put the red pepper(s) into a preheated oven at 200°C for 15 minutes, until their skin has blistered and/or falls off readily. Cool, skin, and roughly shred. Fry the onions until they are translucent, but not browned. Add the carrots and sauté for 5 minutes. Add the tomatoes, papaya, ginger, roasted red peppers, allspice, peppercorns and thyme, and fry until the papaya squelches into a mush. Depending on your taste and tolerance, don the gloves, and roughly shred 5 or more chillis (seeds and everything) into the pan. Cook gently for 5 minutes, then add then sugar, vinegar and lime juice. Cover and cook until the carrots have softened completely (you may need to add a little water as this happens). Pureé the mixture (those whirring-blades-on-a-stick things for making soup work excellently), and pass through a sieve. Add any extra sugar, lime (or salt) to taste, and place into a sterilised glass jar.
Chilli 'bruschetta'
Toast slices of ciabatta. Cook a really stinky goat's cheese in the oven till it goes gloopy, and dry-fry some halved cherry tomatoes till they go squashy. Then make little bruschetta from these, douse them heavily with hot sauce, and enjoy.
Chilli oil
Chilli oil is dead easy to make and can be added to almost anything: just fill a bottle with dried red chillies, top up with olive oil, and leave somewhere warm and dark for a week or two. Great drizzled on pizza, pasta or warm bread.
Xocoatl
The original drinking chocolate. Heat 500 ml of milk or water with one sliced chilli until it is suitably hot and infused. Melt 200 g of the bitterest chocolate you can find into the mixture with one split vanilla pod and two tablespoons of honey. Strain out the bits, and whisk.