Chile Pepper Fun Fact - Demon’s Spice
The Power of Chiles Compels You...
Chile peppers are considered the ‘Demon’s Spice’ in southern Italy. However, some locals use it for personal protection, or to protect your car or your house from the evil eye and gossipers.
Just hang a fresh string of chillies in the house, at the door or on the balcony, or perhaps carry a plastic ‘horn’, which looks like a chile pepper, in your pocket as a lucky charm. Tradition dictates the chillies should be fresh, not dry, to ensure good fortune.
Whether or not you’re convinced by these benefits, one thing is undoubtedly true of chile peppers: fresh, flaked or powdered, they add a delicious heat to your cooking. Not only that, but they’re also thought to have a number of health benefits and are packed with vitamins and minerals such as vitamins C, B6, K1 and A, as well as potassium and copper.
Chile Pepper Fun Fact - The Datil Chile Pepper
The Official Chile Pepper of St. Augustine, Florida
A datil pepper is a small hot pepper found in great abundance locally here in St. Augustine. The pepper is a variety of the species Capsicum Chinese also known as "yellow lantern chili." The botanist who discovered Capsicum Chinese misnamed the plant, believing peppers of this species originated in China.
The official pepper of St. Augustine, Florida. Go there and you'll find many restaurants proudly feature this pepper which has been a part of the city's heritage for over a century. They even have an annual Datil Pepper Festival in October, with the first Saturday in October being Datil Pepper Day. The festival aims to encourage the cultivation of the Datil pepper in the St. Augustine area.
A datil pepper is similar in its heat index to a habanero, hitting at around 100,000 to 300,000 on the Scoville scale--a scale used to measure the spiciness of peppers. But unlike habaneros, datil peppers are sweet, with a fruitful tangy taste to them.
Chile Pepper Fun Fact - Corking, Not Just in Wine
Chile peppers can get stretch marks?
Corking on jalapeño peppers appears as scaring or minor striations on the surface of the pepper skin. When you see jalapeño skin cracking in this manner, it simply means that it needs to stretch to accommodate the rapid growth of the pepper.
Peppers with "corking" will be hotter and sweeter than those that are smooth. A: Jalapeno peppers are prone to this light brown cracking, called corking. It is the plant's way of closing and sealing the skin cracks that develop with normal maturing.
Corking happens when there is a lot of rain or any other source of water (soaker hoses), as well as plenty of sunshine, the pepper goes into a growth spurt, causing corking. Many different sorts of hot peppers are subject to this corking process, although not sweet pepper cultivars
Chile Pepper Fun Fact - Colorado vs. New Mexico
My Chile Peppers are better. No way, mine are way better than yours...
The heated rivalry between Colorado and New Mexico is a hot one! It’s over Hatch versus Pueblo chile. And it's a heated debate... Heated, get it.
The battle began when Colorado Gov. Jared Polis shared on Facebook that New Mexico’s Hatch chile is “inferior” to Pueblo’s on a post about Whole Foods selling Pueblo chile in the Rocky Mountain region.
Polis then told The Sante Fe New Mexican that Pueblo chile is “the best in the world.”
New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham fired back on Twitter and said, “If Pueblo chile were any good, surely it would have been on national shelves before now. But if Gov. Polis wants to go chile to chile, I assure him New Mexico can bring the heat.”
The debate re-ignited on social media when Governor Jared Polis took to Facebook to announce that Whole Foods would carry Pueblo chiles. He wrote, "New Mexico stores will unfortunately not be offering the best chile and will instead keep offering inferior New Mexico chile." Those were fighting words.
Hot Sauce Fun Fact - All-Encompassing Brand Names
People ask for a Coke, Kleenex and Tabasco...
But these are brand names and not actually an all-encompassing view of what products they actually are.
Tabasco is, in fact, the brand name of the American-made product, a very specific red-pepper sauce that is produced by the McIlhenny Co. in Louisiana. The McIlhenny family has made Tabasco sauce on Avery Island for some five generations. As the company shares, “Built on a salt dome, it’s a mysteriously beautiful place where the red peppers grow, the factory hums, and abundant wildlife can be seen in Jungle Gardens.” Tripadvisor even places the company’s factory tour on its top five things to do on the island.
McIlhenny grew his first commercial crop in 1868 and by the following year would send out 658 bottles of the sauce (at $1 each, wholesale) to Gulf Coast grocers, especially those in New Orleans. He labeled his creation, “Tabasco,’ a word of Mexican Indian origin believed to mean ‘place where the soil is humid’ or ‘place of the coral or oyster shell."
Hot Sauce Fun Fact - Ajika Sauce
Ajika is a Georgian-Abkhazian hot, spicy, but subtly flavored sauce, often used to flavor food or as a dip. In 2018, the technology of ajika was inscribed on the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Georgia list, Intangible cultural heritage are elements of the cultural heritage of Georgia which are abstract and must be learned, encompassing traditional knowledge including festivals, music, performances, celebrations, handicrafts, and oral traditions.
The name derives from the Abkhaz word аџьыка "salt". The Abkhazian variant of ajika is based on a boiled preparation of hot red peppers, garlic, herbs, and spices such as coriander, dill, blue fenugreek (only found in mountain regions such as the Alps or the Caucasus), salt, and walnut. A dry form of ajika exists that looks like small red clumps mixed with a looser version of the spice mixture. Home-made ajika is available from many market stalls in the Caucasus and in the Krasnodar Krai of Russia. Tomatoes are not an ingredient of traditional ajika, though different versions of ajika, sometimes having tomatoes or tomato paste as an ingredient, are produced on a commercial scale and sold in supermarkets in Russia and Ukraine.
Common varieties of ajika resemble Italian red pesto in appearance and consistency. Though it is usually red, green ajika is also made with unripe peppers.
Chile Pepper Fun Fact - Aji Lemon Drop
Mmmm... Yellow Lemon Drop Peppers
Also known as Kellu Uchu in Peru or Aji Lemon Drop, you’ll never get tired of growing the Lemon Drop with their surprising spicy, citrus, tangy flavors! Not only are their flavors amazing for many culinary meals, but the Aji Limon pepper is also an unforgettable ornamental plant that you’ll want to stare at all day long in your garden. The 3-foot tall Hot Lemon pepper plant heavily produces gorgeous, crinkly, thin-walled pods that will ripen from green to clear lemon yellow, and sometimes to dark purple blush. The Aji Limo peppers will grow to 2-3 inches long with very few seeds. The Lemon Drop pepper Scoville is between 15,000-30,000 SHUs so you’ll notice a medium-heat punch when you eat it raw, a heat similar to the Cayenne, Serrano, or Tabasco.
It does have a hint of lemon and citrus, making it ideal for chicken, fish and seafood meals. The Aji Lemon pepper also makes a delicious pepper powder, flakes, salsas, and hot sauces.
The Lemon Drop chile is very popular in Peru as a tangy seasoning for meals and snacks. Its name means “Lima Pepper’ which is referring to the Peruvian city.
Chile Pepper Fun Fact - Aji Charapita
What is the rarest type of pepper?
The Aji Charapita Hot Pepper...
Selling for very high prices to Lima’s best chefs, this pepper is the most expensive in the world! The north Peruvian jungle native is a wild bushy plant which produces hundreds of hot, small (.25 inch), round Tepin-like peppers. The pepper has a distinct fruity, citrus aroma and is equal in heat to a cayenne pepper. Due to its rarity and hefty prices, it is often known as the "Mother of All Chilis" and is very hard to source outside of Peru. We are happy here at Baker Creek to bring such an amazing pepper to light! Used fresh, this tiny pepper is known to have a strong fruity flavor that gives salsas and sauces a unique tropical taste. More often, it is used as powder for various dishes. Baker Creek's Shannie McCabe and Deb Vlietstra found this variety growing in a pot in a Peruvian friend's house. Indeed, the Aji Charapita is a popular house plant in Peru, where the delicious peppers are harvested as needed right in the kitchen.
Hot Sauce Fun Fact - According to Instacart
According to Instacart, North Dakota consumes the most amount of hot sauce, averaging 5.4 ounces per consumer. New Mexico ranks second at 4.4 ounces per person, and Colorado ranks third, coming in at 4.0 ounces of hot sauce per person. These regions have a considerable lead over most of the country, as many states barely break the 2.0-ounce mark. Hawaii, Iowa, and Arkansas rank as the states that eat the least amount of hot sauce, with each person respectively consuming 1.3, 1.4, and 1.5 ounces of hot sauce in each state.
The 7-Pot is from Trinidad, and there are a few different versions, including the Yellow 7-Pot, the 7-Pot Jonah, and the Chocolate, or 7-Pot Douglah. It is related to the Trinidad Scorpion Pepper and has rough, pimpled skin, but is more plump, with a ribbed texture and a more fruity flavor. Its name refers to the saying that it is hot enough to spice 7 pots of stew. In Trinidad, it is used in military grade tear gas and marine paint, which prevents barnacles.
The heat of the 7-Pot pepper is similar to the Bhut Jolokia but with a fruitier and nuttier flavor, like other Caribbean peppers. It is becoming more popular and well-known among Chileheads.