• If you need help identifying a pepper, disease, or plant issue, please post in Identification.

Chiltepen: Mother of all Peppers?

"are a genuine bitebite bites"

:D

Capsicum baccatum

Around these parts these suckers grow wild. As a matter of fact there's a bush or two out by my driveway...and they grew wild at the last house I lived at too. I bet these suckers are growing all over the place around here. You usually find them under trees because birds eat them, perch in trees, poop out the seeds an waa-lah! Pepper bush!

Somtimes called "chilipiquins" or 'chili piquins" and coloqually "bird peppers", many a Texas child has eaten these on a dare or been tricked into eating them by an older sibling who calimed they were candy. Ye-oww! These little suckers are hot Hot HOT! Some claim they're hotter than habaneros and while I have no idea of their Scoville ratings I kinda doubt that.

The ones growing out in my front yard are the tiny, BB sized ones. I'm thinking of making a tiny batch of hot sauce with 'em, just because I've never tried to cook with them before.

Anyone have any experience with these little devils?







here's what PEPPERWORLD! ( german website) had to say. I'm just c/p ing this because the google translations cracks me up:

Chiltepin - the "nut/mother of all Chilis"

Small however oho: Chiltepin are considered as the prototype of all Chilis. Still they grow wildly, and for Scharfschmecker the rare berries are a genuine bitebite bites. Here you find and prescriptions to background information.

With Chilis most humans think of oblong, spitzige schoten, like for example Cayenne. But at the beginning the sharp Fruechtchen looked whole completely differently, i.e. small and approximately, like bird berries. And birds were it also, which contributed South America over completely to their spreading. So correctly fierily were they however already at that time, because nut/mother nature in this way protected the berries from eating enemies, in particular rodents and other mammals. Birds however do not feel the sharpness of the Chili active substance Capsaicin.

Humans found however promptly favours at the sharpness and collected the tiny fiery berries already before approximately 9000 years. Already very soon one began with breeding and created many of those sorts, which still admits also today and are popular. Ancho/Poblano for example originates from the praekolumbianischen time, thus before the European discovery of the sharp schoten by Kolumbis into the Karibik - a region, which he regarded as India, and which red schoten for a kind pepper (see the Chili Story ).

In addition, the prototype of the Chilis, Chiltepin or briefly Tepin mentioned, could itself hold over the many thousand years, and it grows wildly in northern Mexico and in the south of the US Federal States Texas and Arizona. Dr. Francisco Hern�ndez was the first European, who described the Chiltepins, 1615 in the context of first systematic listing of the South American plant world.

It believes the Tarahumara Indian resident in the Mexican Sonora desert that Chiltepins would offer the greatest possible protection against Hexerei. One of their proverbs means even: "a man, who does not eat Chilis, makes himself suspicious the Hexerei". The Papago Indians from Arizona - which borders US Federal State north on Sonora - it is convinced that there is already the Chiltepins since the erschaffung of the earth.

Since more jeher Chiltepins have also their place in the Voksmedizin. From Mexico it is well-known that the sharp berries were handed when inadvertent swallowing of acid; in addition they were mixed zerstossen and with garlic, Oregano and warm water. Also there is to be a medicine in Mexico against Sodbrennen, whose active substance is won particularly from this Chili sort. Further diseases, which were treated allegedly with Chiltepins, are among other things neck inflammation, Ruhr, rheumatism and ulcers.

In the kitchen Chiltepins did not only serve in former times for peppering; since they work as Antioxidant, thereby also the durability of meat could be improved.


Getrocknete Chiltepin-Chilis

Small, strongly, sharply:
Chiltepin, the "Ur-Chili"
(beside 1-Euro-Muenze)



A sharp delicate-eats

Gourmets, which like it gladly fierily, estimate Chiltepins as a completely special delicate-eat, because them are characterised by a special flavour and a clear, cutting sharpness. Usually they are dried used. Since the Chiltepin shrubs in the desert must grow far scattered and be pulled the small berries laboriously by hand, they belong beside safran to the most expensive spices of the world. Particularly Salsas, soups as well as potting and bean courts lend the mini Chilis fire and flavour; as flakes they make each Pizza the experience.



Oh, it's funny.
:lol:

saucelevel4.jpg


you can read more PEPPERWORLD! " The sharpest from the world of the Chili Peppers!" here:

http://www.pepperworld.com/default.asp

(for translation google it and use "translate this page"...it's fun!)
 
I raise tepins (texas bird pepper) in my hydro greenhouse.

I first got the seed from Monticello and it is remarkably easy to grow and prolific. I first saw the plant near Guanajuato city up in the mesa and the plant was reported to be 40-50 years old.

Tepin is my favorite of all dried chiles and I eat them like the Mexicans, ie, I dry them and keep them in a salt cellar on the table. When I want spice, I crush a few on my food and then wash my hands.

There is a lot of myth surrounding tepins in chile circles.
 
LOL, that was horrific translation! Whatya suppose they did, use Babelfish???

Bad, bad, bad.

Pity I can't read German, I'd love to see what it really says, but I think that translation, as funny as it is, gives the basic gyst.

Here we have another example of misinformation about peppers on the net.

The article has some glaring errors. The Chiltepin isn't a Baccatum, it's an Annuum.

Our Peppermaster knows them as Bird Peppers, and they're hot but they don't hold their heat very long. Which is probably why Mexicans who eat them as "poppers" can eat them like candy. But those are eaten fresh. I don't think I've had the pleasure of eating one yet, so I can't give you my personal thoughts of the pepper.

Willard, I'd love to hear some of the myths surrounding these peppers.

As for Scoville units. Like the Naga Jolokia being incapable of beating a Chinsense for potency, there is no way that this pepper can consistently beat Chinsenses, it just doesn't have the upper heat range ability. These guys will hit somewhere between 50K and 100K so they are hot, but they aren't habaneros.

But, don't take my word for it, here is Dave DeWitt's take on the Chiltepin.

T.
 
Tina Brooks said:
Our Peppermaster knows them as Bird Peppers, and they're hot but they don't hold their heat very long. T.

In Mexico, the flavor is described as "'arrebatado', an expression that means 'although it is extremely hot the sensation dissappears easily and rapidly."'

The heat varies among species and heat varies pretty much with parent seed...some tepins are more picante than others. Almost all chinenses I have tasted are more picante, but tepins are very easy to carry and chinenses are not.
 
willard3][quote name= said:
In Mexico, the flavor is described as "'arrebatado', an expression that means 'although it is extremely hot the sensation dissappears easily and rapidly."'

The heat varies among species and heat varies pretty much with parent seed...some tepins are more picante than others. Almost all chinenses I have tasted are more picante, but tepins are very easy to carry and chinenses are not.

Interesting info, Willard, I'd never heard "arrebatado". It fits though.

Of course, not only are the chinsenses harder to carry, the heat doesn't dissipate very quickly at all! :shock:

T.
 
I'v had them in the greenhouse 24" tall because I prune stuff a lot.

I've seen them in the wild 10' tall, but it was under a mesquite tree.
 
willard3 said:
I'v had them in the greenhouse 24" tall because I prune stuff a lot.

I've seen them in the wild 10' tall, but it was under a mesquite tree.

If they taste as good as they look, they're incredible.

T
 
An internet friend of my wife's sent me a batch of wild chiles from Florida. They are longer than the little "bb" size ones that grow around here but I think they are still "Pequines" .

They were dried so I skillet roasted them and reconstituted them and made a hot sauce along with about 3 red ripe jalapenos from my garden and a few "super chles" ( super chiles are a "Chef Jeff" variety I bought last spring they are little red peppers that seem sort of like tiny cayannes to me. See my "habanaero harvest" post and you an see a few of them in the basket). The sauce had a nice earthy, almost smokey taste. I put a little (OK, a lot ) more vinegar in it than I usually do which made for a sort of "Louisianna" style sauce...but with better flavor than any off the shelf sauce I've had.

Good little chiles.....I'm gonna try to grow some of them here if I can get the seeds to sprout. Yhanks Crowjoy!
 
Hey, I finally know the name of the peppers in my front yard. My husband (Curt) and I have been trying to put a name to it for years! We were given the plant by a member of his crew at work. He told us the name in Spanish, as that is what he speaks but we could not figure it out. It gets both the little round BB shaped peppers and the very small pepper shaped ones. HOT but yummy. Grows like crazy - has to be pruned back often as it is next to the front porch.
Pam
 
These are my absolute favorite, well worth the laborious picking and picking and picking! I've heard that they can reach more like 100k to 150k scovilles. Our plants usually get about 2 ft high and spread to the same wide, but one year we had 2 plants that bushed our every bit of 4 ft in all directions! We also have grown them in 5 gal pots and overwintered them inside with lights to get another season out of them. Since they are annuums, they're cultivated, albeit much older (by maybe a few thousand years) cultivars than your "garden variety" chiles. But that subject is for the taxonomists, and they don't all agree! brookthecook
 
Welcome to THP!!!
Pequins(the domesticated form of Tepins) are also one of my favorites as well. Many grocery stores sell them dried in little bags...usually see them 0.25-0.5 oz for a couple of bucks. I've tried buying larger quantities, but they get expensive. I've never seen them for sale in their fresh form. I have seeds of several varieties I'd be happy to send you.(just send me an email as my PM box is full, and I can't figure out how to save them). The Pequins are not usually very productive the first year, but in the following years they really take off.
 
Back
Top