THE SPICE OF LIFE

World cuisine is an adventure in itself, providing infinite opportunities for travel through it’s many wonders. Whilst on our journeys of discovery, nowhere is there more excitement and allure than a journey into the heart of darkness – the mysterious realm of the humble chilli.

Whilst we only see 20 or so types of chilli commercially grown in Australia, there are actually more than 6000 types all over the globe, from 22 different wild varieties. And of these wild varieties, only 5 are domesticated.

Marc Winterburn, the Oz Chilli Man, says that list is growing rapidly. “I have plants or seeds for about 1500 or more varieties. Of these over 900 are unnamed ‘Chinense’ varieties – the same family that boasts the Red Savina, Chocolate habanero, and all the other habanero varieties!”

It is these fiery little devils which are usually considered the world’s hottest – clocking in at around 200,000 – 577,000 Scoville units.

Measuring a Chilli’s Heat

Pharmacologist Doctor Wilbur L. Scoville was rather interested in chillies back in 1912, and decided to find a way to grade the heat from different chilli peppers. Perhaps he was a little sick of surprises every time he ate a chilli, so thought he would concoct a method of measuring the heat of different chilli varieties.

He devised the Scofield test, as the ABC/Triple J radio’s Dr Karl Kruszelnicki explains:

“Dr Scoville dissolved one grain (0.0648 grams) of raw hot pepper in 100cc of alcohol, and let it sit overnight. He then put a small drop of this liquid on a volunteer’s tongue. If the volunteer could taste it, Scoville would dilute the alcohol with water, and test it again. He would continue diluting and testing until there was no sensation of heat. If a single drop of this alcohol-and-pepper solution had to be diluted with 30 drops of water, then that pepper would rate at 30 Scoville units.”

Bell pepper (standard capsicum) 0

Primavera Jalapeno 2000 – 5000

Cayenne pepper 8,000 – 50,000

Aji 17,000

Jalapeno 25,000

Tabasco sauce 30,000 – 50,000

Tepin 75,000

Habanero 150,000 – 300,000

Red savina chilli 325,000 – 577,000

Pure capsaicin juice 8.5 – 16 million units!!! Now THAT’s Hot.

But don’t discount the rest of them, Marc warns, “…tepins, chitepins, pequins and all the other birds eye chillies are also very hot, and with 4500 varieties unnamed and untested, I would say we’re in for a few surprises – so hold onto your hats and whatever else you’ve got!”

The Naga Jolokia, a variety recently discovered in India, has been reportedly graded at 855,000 Scoville units – though there seems to be a lot of doubt and debate about the authenticity of this claim.

A Brief History

The humble chilli has been cultivated and featured in the cuisine of Mexico and Central America for about 9000 years – the Cora Indians of Western Mexico even have a legend about the First Man, Narama. Leaping onto a dinner table resplendent with food for a great feast, he was amazed to look down and find his testicles had turned into chilli pods. In surprise he jumped about the table, and the chilli pods sprinkled their spicy delights all over the food, and that is how humans discovered these little fruits were tasty - and spicy!

When Christopher Columbus first stumbled upon the Americas in 1492 he discovered such amazing new foods in the New World as pineapples, corn (maize), sweet potato, and of course, chilli. Upon his return to Spain the following year, these delights spread quickly throughout Europe (oddly enough, it seems the tomato took quite a while longer to catch on!), with Italian recipes recorded from 1526, and some from Hungary dated to 1569.

Portuguese and Spanish traders introduced chillies to India in 1525, where they quickly were adopted as their own, and other Asian and African countries followed suit around this time.

Some Other Interesting Chilli Facts

Habanero chillies are not only recognised as among the world’s hottest, but they also boast a fantastically distinctive fruity flavour, and a burn which you can actually notice building up in your mouth over a minute or so.

The spelling of these little dynamite fruits has several variants including chillie, chili, and chilie, but chilli is pretty standard in Australia and England. Americans sometimes prefer chile (the same as the country) and insist that chilli can only refer to the Tex-mex (and definitely not authentic Mexican) dish ‘chilli con carne’. Either way it’s still a lot easier than the Finnish word for chilli – chilipippuri!

The heat of a chilli comes from a substance called ‘capsaicin’, which is found throughout the fruit and it’s seeds, but is mainly concentrated in the membrane which holds the seeds to the inside of the fruit. This means that by eating more of the fruit flesh itself and less of the membrane, you receive less of a concentration of capsicain and thus, less of a burn. In a chilli eating competition, tough guys, always try to get the first bite as there is considerably less membrane and seeds in the tip of a chilli than higher up nearer the stem!

Most of us know that chillies come from the Capsicum genus, as do the fruit of the same name, but did you know that they are all part of the Solanaceae, or nightshade, family? This family of plants includes such unlikely bedfellows as potato, tomato, eggplant, sweet potato and tobacco.

Capsaicin doesn’t easily dissolve in water, which explains why a glass of water merely makes the burn from a hot chilli worse. They do, however, dissolve in fat, which is why hot curries are often served with a yoghurt based raita, or sour cream often accompanies hot chilli con carne.

Doctors are now researching various applications for chilli in medicine, including treating pain related problems such as arthritis, shingles, diabetic neuropathy, and even spinal cord injuries.

Police pepper sprays consist of up to 5% red pepper dissolved in natural oils and can temporarily blind the recipient, not to mention severely irritating the skin and causing respiratory difficulties by inflaming the nose and throat.

And one last word of caution from Dr Karl Kruszelnicki: “If you weighed less than 63.5kg, and eat 2.84 litres of a Louisiana-style hot sauce, you have a very good chance of dying from respiratory failure.”

Special thanks to Marc Winterburn, The Oz Chilli Guy, for his help with research for this article.

Further Reading and more thanks:

Doctor Karl Kruszelnicki’s articles “Nuclear Food”

Read them at www.abc.net.au/science/k2/moments/default.htm for a great description of exactly how the capsicain triggers a burn in our mouths, and some interesting medical facts and applications

‘Finer Things – One hot little number’ by Chawadee Nualkhair - Read this one at

www.halfmoon.com

Be excellent to each other!

Shane Pinnegar

May 2004