From: sdg@wag.caltech.edu (Siddharth Dasgupta)
Newsgroups: rec.food.cooking
Subject: Re: Request for HOT peppers
Date: 28 Dec 1992 18:12:54 GMT
Organization: California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA
NNTP-Posting-Host: sgi1.wag.caltech.edu

In article <Bzxw1q.GCv@jfwhome.FUNHOUSE.COM> babs@jfwhome.FUNHOUSE.COM (Babs Woods) writes:
< some stuff edited>
>	Thai peppers are also ornamental, growing their fruit upwards 
>on the stems, as supposedly most or all hot peppers will do.  (I suspect 
>that the smaller ones are likelier to do this than the ones that make
>bigger fruit, since bigger peppers are heavier.)

I had read in an article LA Times Food section published in May 91
that birds love hot peppers. Most wild peppers grow with their 
peppers pointing upwards. Those that grow with their pepper pointing
downwards are that way because after long years of breeding to hide
the peppers beneath leaves so the birds could not spot them. Here is
the original article:

"Chile is altogether amazing. Is it a spice? Is it a vegetable? (What
other spice can you stuff with shrimp and cheese?)
28~rio
The people of the Americas began eating chiles four or five thousand
years ago. You have to wonder how they ever got started -- every other
mammal gives the chile pod a wide berth. Probably they operated on the
same theory that inspired great-grandmother's spring tonic, the idea 
that anything with a fierce flavor has to have medicinal powers.

Whatever their reasons, they soon found that chiles are habituating.
Over the course of a meal, you become less sensitive to the burn --
and over the course of your lifetime as well..

We know they were eating peppers thousands of years ago because
Mexican and Peruvian archeological sites dating back to 2,000 BC
contain chile pods that show signs of domestication. Wild chiles
                                                     ^^^^^^^^^^^
are small and stick up above the leaves of the plant so birds can
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
see them -- in the wild, birds are the ones who spread chile seeds.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
We can tell from the shape of the ancient chiles that these had
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
already been bred to ripen below the leaves, safely hidden from the
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
birds.
^^^^^

Only after that could people start breeding large peppers. Since
the wild chiles are extremely hot (apparently the way the birds like
them), there was little need to develop hotter chiles. Generally
speaking, larger peppers relfect a taste for milder, more
vegetable-like chile. This is still the rule of thumb in sizing 
up an unfamiliar pepper: If it's small, it's almost certainly
the old-fashioned red-hot kind.


.....However, New Orleasn hot sauces contain the Tabasco 
pepper of the semi-wild, very hot species *Capsicum 
frutescens*, bative to Central and South America. And
lately (this was in `91), hot pepper fanatics have abandoned
their loyalty to the *jalapeno* in favor of the very much 
hotter chile *habanero* of the Caribbean and lowland South
America, also known as the Scotch bonnet pepper. It belongs
to a species closely related to the *Capsicum frutescens*,
*C. sinense* (or *C. chinense* -- botanists seem to wobble
on this).But there are other species native to South America
we have not seen at all yet. *C. baccatum*, grown on either
side of the Andes, can be told from any other because it is
the only chile with a spotted flower. *C. pubescens*, grown
in the Andes themselves, is the only chile plant covered with
a fine, downy hair (it's also the only chile not found in the
wild -- it survives mainly due to human cultivation). Most 
of the South American chiles are much hotter than anything
currently eaten in this country - though the way things are
going, it's only a matter of time."

There is one version called *rocotillo* which is supposedly
hotter than the habanero. In Mexico the habanero has a nickname
"Gringo Killer".

Incidentally the Thai peppers are called *khi nu* in Thai.




-- 
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Siddharth Dasgupta (sdg@wag.caltech.edu) (818) 397-2725
Materials & Molecular Simulation Center, Beckman Institute, CALTECH,Pasadena
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