This plant traveled around the world in 500 years and experienced many commercial and historical events of Man, to be cultivated almost everywhere today.
Today there are more than 140 varieties of peppers with different flavors. There are mild peppers, moderately hot peppers and literally explosive peppers!
But actually, why this spicy sensation?
The cause of the heat in a pepper is capsaicin, a chemical compound from the alkaloid family. The highest level of capsaicin is found on the internal membranes, the whitish part at the base of the pepper which innervates the interior. This part is also called the placenta of the pepper. When it grows it surrounds the seeds, so the seeds are also prickly.
Can you get used to the heat of chili?
After absorption a certain type of nerve (TRPV, Transient Receptor Vanilloid) is responsible for the burning sensation. Without going into detail about the mechanisms of the burning sensation released by capsaicin, it is indeed proven that we are disinhibited by the strength of chili pepper. This is why we may be surprised by certain cultures delighting in chili peppers at every meal! We therefore understand better what a Mexican can do by ingesting peppers with very spicy flavors every day.
How to measure the strength of a chili pepper?
Wilbur Scoville, an American pharmacologist, set up a scale to measure the strength of chili peppers.
It takes into account the quantity of capsaicin and ranges from zero (Pepper) to more than 2 million (Carolina Reaper). The measurement is simple: it expresses the number of dilutions necessary to no longer feel the spiciness of the pepper. An Espelette pepper measured at 2500 on the Scoville scale will have to be diluted 2500 times to no longer smell anything.
There is another scale, more simplified and modeled on the Scoville model, of which here are some benchmarks:
0 Neutral: Pepper
1 Sweet: Sweet paprika
2 Warm: Sweet chili pepper
3 Statement: Ancho Chili
4 Hot: Espelette pepper
5 Strong: Jalapeno Pepper, Tabasco Sauce
6 Ardent: Hot Pepper
7 Burning: Piquin Pepper
8 Torrid: Bird's eye chili
9 Volcanic: Chiltepín pepper
10 Explosive: West Indian pepper
We find more and more references on this scale in the trade. It will give you some guidelines, depending on your sensitivity, to taste a pepper.
The scale could continue higher but it is quite rare in our region to find a connoisseur getting enough of hot peppers than West Indian peppers! There are certainly even much hotter peppers such as the Trinidad moruga scorpion or the Carolina Reaper which are more the subject of competition for the highest levels of capsaicin by hybrid varieties created than for the expression of a flavor.