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Capsicum Capsicum annuum |
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Here's a bowl of garden grown green capsicums, yellow or
'banana' capsicums and some chilli mild peppers |
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The hot and mild varieties of peppers are all descended
from Capsicum annuum a genus of the family
Solanacea which relates them to tomatoes, potatoes,
aubergines (and deadly nightshade). Columbus, when he was looking for his
shortcut to the East Indies for spices, found America and
also the Caribbean islanders using hot capsicums for
cooking. The Oxford Companion to Food
records the confusion over their name, peppers? chillies?
capsicums? and what they're called in different countries.
Alan Davidson explains that it stems back to a conflict
between the Dutch traders, and everyone in Europe that
they traded their true black pepper, Piper nigrum with.
Columbus,
apparently really, really wanted them to be pepper (pimienta
in Spanish) and to break the hold of the Dutch on the
valuable spice. Black pepper was apparently used extensively to hide the flavour of 'off' meat
(but given a bit more research, we find it was also used just
as an exotic spice in places where fresh meat was widely
available. They just liked it).
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