• ✅ Expert and friendly hot pepper grow advice.
    ✅ The latest information on hot pepper varieties.
    ✅ Reliable seed trading.
    ✅ Hot sauce recipes and food safety guidance.
    ✅ Hot sauce business tips for startups.
    🌶️ And more!
    It's all here, at The Hot Pepper! The Internet's original hot pepper community! Est. 2004.
  • If you can't find a "Hot" category that fits, post it here!

favorite Get spicy without chili peppers?

Doctor Scoville

Doctor Scoville

What would you grow to spice up your world if chili would not be an option?

I'm thinking of a sechuan pepper tree. They are supposed to get spice berry which can be dried en powdered.

also wasabi root but not the most appealing plant.

What would you have?
 
Each of those would be high on my list to consider, though when I've looked into them before they didn't seem too practical in my case. Same with piper nigrum. If chilis weren't an option, I'd have more time for them and might be inclined to make the effort.
 
I like the four different colors of black pepper (white, black, green and red) and real wasabi (grating the root, only found in Japan). But I read that wasabi is very hard to grow, it needs specific environments.
I don't like very much szechuan pepper's taste, horseradish and mustard.... working with mustard seeds it's not practical.
So I would probably try growing a black pepper plant. Or just mini bell peppers 🙂
 
SatanicFlatIron said:
I like the four different colors of black pepper (white, black, green and red) and real wasabi (grating the root, only found in Japan). But I read that wasabi is very hard to grow, it needs specific environments.
I don't like very much szechuan pepper's taste, horseradish and mustard.... working with mustard seeds it's not practical.
So I would probably try growing a black pepper plant. Or just mini bell peppers 🙂
Click to expand...
Wasabi is hard to grow. It’s like a semi-aquatic plant, or something.
I once met some guys growing it commercially in Half Moon Bay, CA. They had an estuary-like setting built in a greenhouse and they delivered to top tier restaurants in SF. Here they are: https://hmbwasabi.com/

I asked why no one was copying them and they just laughed, “good luck!”

They let me take one root home and told me how to prepare it. It was delicious. But that first grating released some fumes that reached the sinuses in the back of my head! After that, it was still potent but superior to anything I’ve ever had.
 
salsalady said:
CHeck out the wasabi store in oregon.
Click to expand...
Thanks, nice to see that they are growing it elsewhere! Found in Iceland too.
Years ago I recall some spanish pioneer guys researching and trying to grow wasabi in Catalonia (debunking a sort of "myth"). Website found!
BTW, I have some doubts about the powder, because once grated it quickly loses its aroma.
PurpPepp said:
I asked why no one was copying them and they just laughed, “good luck!”

They let me take one root home and told me how to prepare it. It was delicious.
Click to expand...
In Japan I was very impressed: depending on where you grate the root (white or green part) the spiciness progressively changes. You can reach a perfect point, according to what you need in your dish; even adding just a delicate fresh note.
 
There is some reasonable powder out there. I tend to freeze a horseradish root. They can be grated while frozen. This keeps the freshness, your not looking for crush in this case anyway. My guess is wasabi might freeze the same but never got hold of fresh wasabi.
 
Sorry if responding to an old thread is not cool here, but I’m still new and found this one a very interesting question.

Unfortunately, I can’t do horseradish or wasabi. I’m convinced that the pro/no-horseradish/wasabi thing is similar to the pro/no-cilantro thing, and I’m decidedly NO on both. I want to love horseradish, just on principle of what it is and how it’s used but, try as I might, I can’t stand the stuff even in tiny doses.

I have had catered roast beef sandwiches, for like business meeting and such (meaning: you know it’s made bland for maximum palate acceptance), smelled that the sauce had horseradish in it, diligently scraped it off… and still couldn’t mouth the sandwich. My body DESPISES that flavor… even more than it rejects cilantro.

So, my answer to this really neat question: onions and garlic. I love them, especially the really stinky ones that are slightly painful to eat.

The wife always pushes that part of a recipe off to me, and she’s learned to give me a bunch more than we actually need because she knows I can’t help but to eat a bunch of it while I’m chopping it.

I did a little reading on it, and the spiciness of onions and garlic are a sulphur-based thing. I don’t grow onions or garlic every year, but I have experimented with it, and amending the soil with (SMALL amounts of) sulphur does seem to make a noticeable increase in their “spiciness” without hurting the plant.

I think there is some hay to be made there, if a person needed some spiciness in their life but couldn’t do chiles anymore for whatever reason. An onion that can knock you on your ass is possible. And it ‘prolly tastes good.
 
Pink peppercorns (which are not true peppercorns, but from the Peruvian Pepper Tree, Schinus Molle).
gardenbetty.com

Pink Peppercorns Come From a Common Tree—Here's How to Forage Them

Maybe you've seen this ornamental evergreen tree in your neighborhood, with its sweeping willow-like branches draped in reddish-pink berries. But did you know these berries, when ripened in fall and winter, can be foraged and dried as pink peppercorns? (Yes, the same gourmet pink peppercorns you...
gardenbetty.com gardenbetty.com
Try grinding a tablespoon's worth and you will find when added to a pot of chili or sauce it will spice it up without overpowering it like black pepper. It actually has a sweet taste with heat and you can add an abundance for a new type of kick. Most people treat it like black pepper and are cautious with it.
 
I might have to stop eating if I didn't have chiles available in some capacity 😬 This thread is about a nightmare scenario 😅 I've got nothing to add for ideas. Battery acid? 😇

The Hot Pepper said:
Pink peppercorns (which are not true peppercorns, but from the Peruvian Pepper Tree, Schinus Molle).
gardenbetty.com

Pink Peppercorns Come From a Common Tree—Here's How to Forage Them

Maybe you've seen this ornamental evergreen tree in your neighborhood, with its sweeping willow-like branches draped in reddish-pink berries. But did you know these berries, when ripened in fall and winter, can be foraged and dried as pink peppercorns? (Yes, the same gourmet pink peppercorns you...
gardenbetty.com gardenbetty.com
Try grinding a tablespoon's worth and you will find when added to a pot of chili or sauce it will spice it up without overpowering it like black pepper. It actually has a sweet taste with heat and you can add an abundance for a new type of kick. Most people treat it like black pepper and are cautious with it.
Click to expand...

I forgot I was meaning to order some pink peppercorns because they're not actual peppercorns, great reminder!


INTLgunMonkey said:
I did a little reading on it, and the spiciness of onions and garlic are a sulphur-based thing. I don’t grow onions or garlic every year, but I have experimented with it, and amending the soil with (SMALL amounts of) sulphur does seem to make a noticeable increase in their “spiciness” without hurting the plant.
Click to expand...

I remember reading/seeing somewhere someone saying to add sulphur to the soil mix for peppers but didn't say why or I don't remember why. Something else to research unless someone shoots it down here haha
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top