the botanical and also to some extent the common name for a genus of plants which includes a wide range of species: those referred to as peppers, sweet (or bell, or green) peppers, pimento, pimiento, chilli (and in other spellings).
Some of these common names, notably pepper and pimento (see allspice), are also used for fruits of other genera. Hence the need to use the name capsicum here for the Capsicum genus as a whole.
The chilli peppers, the hot ones, are described under their own heading.
The capsicums are a genus of the family Solanaceae, and are therefore related to the New World tomato and potato, and, in the Old World, to the aubergine and deadly nightshade. All capsicums are native to the Americas. The first two of the three species listed below are the most important.
Besides this closely related group annuum/frutescens/chinense, there are two other S. American cultivated species of peppers. C. baccatum is native to the west coast of S. America, and C. pubescens to the Andes. C. baccatum varieties are usually called aji and C. pubescens is known as rocoto (or locoto) from the name of the pepper in the Quechua language of the Inca.
One of Columbus' reasons for trying to take a short cut to the E. Indies, which resulted in his accidentally ‘discovering’ America, was to obtain spices, which were in great demand and very expensive. So, when he found the Caribbean islanders using hot capsicums in their food, he was gratified and brought quantities back from, probably, his very first voyage.
Hopefully likening them to black pepper (pimienta), he called the capsicums ‘pimiento’. He also recorded that they were called axi by the Taino people of Santo Domingo. The word was pronounced ‘ashi’ by the Taino and by Columbus, but the sound changes of 16th-century Spanish led to the modern spelling and pronunciation, aji. Europeans learned the word chilli after the conquest of Mexico, but aji had become the standard word in colonial Spanish; hence its continuing use in Spanish America outside Mexico and C. America (where ‘chilli’ is the name for all capsicums). In Brazil, the word pimenta has remained the name for capsicums in general.
The naming of new foods often involves conflicts of interests among market-makers. The Spanish wanted hot capsicums to be classified as peppers, and most European consumers were happy to fall in line. Within a year of Columbus' return, Peter Martyr described them as ‘pepper more pungent than that from the Caucasus’. Dutch traders, however, who were importing ‘ordinary’ (Piper spp) pepper from the E. Indies feared that this cheap new spice would outsell their expensive one. They therefore tried to enforce the use of the Nahuatl (Mexican) Indian name chilli, and were partially successful.
The sweet peppers became popular in most countries only at the beginning of the 20th century, as demand grew for a greater variety of vegetables. But spices were what the market had wanted, and the hot peppers had been a success in that role from the start, spreading eastward with extraordinary speed (see chilli), in striking contrast to the slow and hesitant manner in which the potato and tomato were accepted in Europe and Asia.
In English-speaking countries, pimiento (adopted into English from Spanish in the 19th century) usually refers to sweet (bell) peppers, the large red or green fruits which can be eaten raw in salads, cut into slivers for stuffing olives, or cooked as a vegetable; they are conveniently designed for stuffing. Piedmont is famous for the exceptionally large and handsome specimens grown there. Ivory or yellow varieties are known as wax peppers. There are also small, mild red cherry peppers.
Intermediate between sweet and hot types, but often mild enough to use whole in cooking, are the Ancho peppers of Mexican cuisine. Slightly hot peppers such as these often have a flavour of superior richness and interest. Another group in this category, classed by growers as Anaheim peppers, provide the Hungarian paprika.
Capsicums are rich in vitamins A and C and in carotenoids, which provide flavour and in some cases colour, the most important red colouring agent being capsanthin. (There are green varieties which lack capsanthin, though they may develop orange patches when ripe; other ‘green’ capsicums are simply unripe.)
Roger Owen has worked with his wife Sri on Indonesian Food and Cookery, and collaborated with her in writing The Rice Book (1993). He is co-author, with Sri, of the forthcoming Oxford Companion to Southeast Asian Food.
