Chiltepin pepper
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| Capsicum annuum var. aviculare (Dierb.) D'Arcy & Eshbaugh |
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| Heat : Very Hot (SR: 50,000-100,000) |
Chiltepin is a wild chile pepper that grows in Mexico and the southwestern United States. It is sometimes called the "mother of all peppers," because it is thought to be the oldest species in the Capsicum genus.
The chiles are extremely hot, rating 50,000 to 100,000 Scoville units, but the heat quickly dissipates.
The Wild Chile Botanical Area in the Coronado National Forest near Tucson, Arizona has the largest population of chiltepin chile peppers north of Mexico. It is the state native pepper of Texas.
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[edit] Pepper Profile: Chiltepin
It is also known as Chiltecpin or simply Tepin, from the Nahuatl Mexican word meaning "flea".
The piquin is a pod type of the annuum species. The word "piquin," also spelled "pequin," is probably derived from the Spanish word "pequeño," meaning small, an obvious allusion to the size of the fruits. Variations on this form place the words "chile" or "chili" before or in combination with both "pequin" and "tepin" forms. The word "Chiltepin" is believed to be derived from the Aztec language (Nahuatl) combination word "chilli" + "tecpintl," meaning "flea chile," an allusion to its sharp bite. That word was altered to "chiltecpin," then to the Spanish "chiltepín," and finally Anglicized to "chilipiquin," as the plant is known in Texas. In Argentina, where spicy food is not popular, this pepper is referred to as the ají puta parió (whore's offspring pepper) or the ají de la mala palabra (pepper of the curse word).
The piquins are also known by common names such as "bird pepper" and "chile mosquito." Most are unnamed varieties, both wild and domesticated, varying in pod size and shape from BBs to de Arbol-like fruits. Generally speaking, the wild varieties (spherical "tepins") are called chiltepins and the domesticated varieties (oblong "piquins") are called piquins or pequins, but in Texas the wild varieties are called chilipiquins. They categorize as an edible fruits and nuts, and vines and climbers .
[edit] The Plant
Piquins vary greatly, usually having an intermediate number of stems and an erect habit.
Chiltepins are one of the few crops in the world which are harvested in the wild rather than cultivated. (Others are mushrooms, piñon nuts, Brazil nuts, and some wild rice.)In the wild, piquins can grow 6 feet high or more, and in the greenhouse they have grown 15 feet high in one season. However, some varieties have a prostrate habit, spreading across the ground like a ground cover.
The leaves are medium green and are lanceolate or ovate, measuring about 3 1/2 inches long by 1 1/2 inches wide. The flower corollas are white with no spots. They blooms all year and repeatedly.The pods are borne erect, are round or oblong, and measure between 1/4 and 1/2 inch long and wide.
Domesticated varieties from tiny and round, but usually have elongate, pointed pods, usually borne erect but occasionally pendant, sometimes measuring up to 2 inches long.
Piquins are extremely hot, measuring between 50,000 and 100,000 Scoville Units. In Mexico, the heat of the Chiltepin is called arrebatado ("rapid" or "violent"), which implies that although the heat is great, it diminishes quickly.
[edit] Agriculture
Botanists believe that these wild chiles are the closest surviving variety to the earliest forms of chiles which developed in Bolivia and southern Brazil long before mankind arrived in the New World. The small size of their fruits were perfect for dissemination by birds, and the wild chiles spread all over South and Central America and up to what is now the United States border millennia before the domesticated varieties arrived. Ethnobotanists believe that birds were responsible for the spread of most wild chiles, and the chiltepin is called the "bird pepper." Attempts at domestication of the wild plants have led to the development of the commercial chile piquin, which grows under cultivation in Mexico and Texas. A cultivated form of the chiltepin has been grown successfully in Sonora and in the Mesilla Valley of New Mexico, where they are planted as annuals. In all cases of domestication, the cultivated forms tend to develop fruits larger than the wild varieties; botanists are not certain whether this trait is the result of better cultural techniques or the natural tendency for humans to pick the largest fruits, which contain next years' seed.
In the U.S., about a thousand acres of "small chili" are cultivated, mostly in Texas and New Mexico. Many of these chiles are packaged and labeled as piquin regardless of the shape of their pods--from those resembling red peppercorns to those which look like small New Mexican varieties--and there is no way to tell which are cultivated and which are collected in the wild.
Piquins do well in the home garden and are particularly suited to being grown in containers as perennials. Garden writer Paul Bessey of the Arizona Daily Star reports that rosy-headed house finches regularly decimate his ripening chiltepins, so some netting protection from birds may be necessary when growing this variety. The growing period is at least 90 days, and the plant can produce from 50 to well over 100 pods, depending on its size and growing period.
[edit] Lore
Archaeologists in Mexico have discovered evidence that humans were chomping on wild chiles, called chiltepins, during prehistoric times — as far back as 7500 B.C.
The Tarahumara Indians of the Sonoran Desert in Mexico believe that chiltepins were the greatest protection against the evils of sorcery. One of their proverbs holds that "The man who does not eat chile is immediately suspected of being a sorcerer." The Papago Indians of Arizona maintain that the chiltepin "has been here since the creation of the earth."
Popular folklore holds that Texans love chile Piquins so much they eat them right off the bush. In fact, their infatuation is so great that Piquin-heads rarely travel far from home without an emergency ration of the tiny pods, either whole or crushed, in a silver snuffbox or pillbox. Texans also reputedly use the chile Piquin in place of soap to punish children for using "cuss words."
[edit] Culinary Usage
The red dried chiltepin is crushed into soups, stews, and bean dishes. The green fruit is chopped and used in salsas and bottled en escabeche.
