GARDENS:Chillies are rewarding to grow, providing abundant flowers, and striking, multicoloured fruits
IF YOU GROW things from seed, you’ll be familiar with that little sigh of relief when you get the seeds into their pots or trays, or wherever they are going to start their lives. They have a long, long road to travel afterwards, but it’s nice to see them out the door and on their way, as it were.
There are some seeds that I send off with greater excitement than others; those of chilli peppers, for instance. At every stage of their existence they are model-looking specimens – from the first tiny pairs of perfect, ovate leaves to the shapely, mature plants with starry flowers and impossibly shiny fruits, so glossy that they might be made of plastic or rubber. It’s the tail end of the season for sowing them now, but as long as you don’t dally, and move them smartly into larger pots as soon as they are ready to go, you could be eating your own chilli peppers in July.
Chillies may be intensely aromatic, but much of the thrill is the “burn”. For chilli lovers it is an addictive sensation. We crave the fire in the mouth and throat, the vibrating head, the running nose and watering eyes, the intense and sudden sweating. And the aftermath is vitalising – crystalline breathing, clear head, and feeling of top-to-toe euphoria. This pain-followed-by-exhilaration effect is caused by endorphins, natural opiate-like painkillers that are released by the body when it encounters the capsaicin in the chillies. This substance is concentrated in the placenta, the inner rib to which the seeds are attached. So, if a chilli is too much for you, you can reduce its heat by removing the ribs carefully (and minding where you put your capsaicin-charged hands afterwards).
Capsaicin is used as a defence by the plants to make the fruits unpalatable to animals in the wild. Birds are immune to the heat, and although they are able to eat the fruit, they excrete the seeds whole, acting as flying seed dispersal machines, and ensuring the species’ survival.
The intensity of different chilli peppers may be calibrated in Scoville Heat Units (SHU), a scale that was developed in 1912 by scientist Wilbur Scoville. The figure on the scale refers to the number of drops of water needed to neutralise the taste of one drop of chilli extract. Scoville was employed at the time by Parke Davis, a pharmaceutical company that used chilli extract in its muscle ointment, Heet. (Today, a century later, chilli extract is still an ingredient in muscle salves, such as the American-made Badger rub, available in health shops here.)
A mild chilli, such as the Mexican jalapeño – as used on pizzas – has an SHU rating of 3,500-4,500. The hottest known pepper on the planet, ‘Bhut Jolokia’, is about 250 times hotter, with a rating of over 1 million SHU. The tiniest piece of this northern Indian chilli will turn any dish molten, and leave you gasping. (Don’t reach for water or beer to cool the flames: milk, yoghurt, or other dairy products are more effective). This kind of heat is far too extreme for me, but is sure to appeal to those who are in search of the ultimate chilli hit.
The seeds – and those of 200 other varieties – may be ordered from the Chilli Pepper Company in Cumbria (tel: 00-44-1539-558110; www.chileseeds.co.uk).
Chillies originated in South America, where there are dozens of species. Most of the thousands of cultivated varieties, however, have just five in their parentage: Capsicum annuum, C. baccatum, C. chinense, C. frutescens and C. pubescens.
All are perennial in their native habitat (including the deceptively-named C. annuum), but are usually grown as annuals here. However, in a cool conservatory they can be kept ticking over during winter. Don't mind the loss of leaves, just give them the odd dribble of water every couple of weeks, and when spring comes, prune them back to buds 10 or 15 centimetres from the base, and off they go again.
jpowers@irishtimes.com