Chile peppers have history, heat, and heirloom appeal

BY RITA CALVERT AND TIM HAMILTON

Spice up your cuisine and travel the chile pepper trail with tales of favored heirloom chiles. Ever wondered where chile peppers come from? Remarkably, they all originated in the Americas! The Aztecs, Incans, and Mayans cultivated chiles, with the Aztecs having at least seven different words for hot peppers. Yes, chiles have a long and colorful history and their global path can be followed as a travelogue featuring this popular flavor from many cultures.

These fruits of the capsicum plant, known as chiles, have been cultivated since prehistoric times with chile pepper growing sites dating back to 7000 BC noted by archeologists. At least 6000 years ago it was treasured enough to be valuable in trading. More “recently,” Christopher Columbus is credited with spreading the fruit from New World to Old. Humans are not the only ones to transport the chile as birds, which unlike mammals, cannot feel the burn, also carried the seeds worldwide. By the way, chiles must be at least 50 years old to be considered heirloom, usually by virtue of their seeds being handed down for generations, and thus, identical to their parent plants.

Today, chile pepper culture is found worldwide. These small, fiery fruits are used fresh, dried, stuffed, and pickled in international cuisine and as a preservative with their natural antimicrobial properties. Festivals celebrating the chile abound in the United States, Mexico, South America, many European countries, Australia, and Asia.

Chile Pepper DEFINITION

“Chile?” you ask. Not chili? Chile spelled with an “e” at the end refers to a spicy hot pepper and is said to have the shape of a lower case “e.” The word chili, ending in “i” is a dish with spices that mix chiles with other ingredients. But it’s true that you’ll find these spellings used interchangeably.

Chiles are noted for their heat. How much heat? Check the Scoville scale, a handy tool for the degree of heat or capsaicin in a chile, developed by Wilbur Scoville, an American pharmacist, in 1916. The higher the SHU (Scoville heat units), the hotter the pepper is. In comparison, a bell pepper is mild and usually sweet and has a Scoville rating of zero. 