Peppers

Almost everyone's touched by the presence of peppers in their life at one point or the other, for all the different reasons.

I had no idea that New Mexico State University has a full fledged 'The Chile Pepper Institute'(CPI) dedicated to everything pepper! As they say: "their research can be hot and cool at the same time". The CPI is an international nonprofit organization devoted to education, research, and archiving information related to Capsicum. Since its inception in 1992, it has been a recognized research institute in the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences.

I would like to share some info on chile peppers here:

Origin
Chili peppers originated in the lowlands of Brazil as small red, round, 'berry-like'
fruits. This location called the ‘nuclear area’ has the greatest number of wild species of chile peppers in the world today. Scientists believe that birds are mainly responsible for the spread of wild chile peppers out of this ‘nuclear area.’ Over the centuries birds developed a symbiotic relationship with chile peppers. Birds do not have the receptors in their mouths that feel the “heat” and a birds digestive system does not harm the chile pepper seed. So while birds could go around gathering up the small fruits and consuming them with no adverse effects, dispersed seeds would grow into new plants.

Types
There are five domesticated and 25 known wild species of chile peppers. The domesticated species include annuum, chinense, frutescens, baccatum, and pubescens. C. annuum, has the greatest number of varieties and contains the New Mexican pod type, jalapeño, bell pepper, cherry, poblano, and hundreds more pod types. C. chinese has the habanero and scotch bonnet, while C. frutescens has the famous Tabasco. C. baccatum are the South American ‘aji’s’ while C. pubescens is the ‘Rocoto’ and ‘Manzano’.

World's Hottest Chile Ever
It is grown in the UK, that is a bit surprising for me. They say that it is like putting a red hot coal in mouth. to read the whole story click on the title of the post.

Spelling of this Fiery Hot Pepper
1-The Oxford English Dictionary refers to the word chilli as the primary spelling.
2-This word is spelled both with a single and double L's.
3-Today, the common variations are: ‘chile’(New Mexico made it a law to spell it this way), ‘chili’, ‘chilli’, and ‘chile’.
4-I personally think that there is no hard and fast rule to spell these peppers and so if anybody wants to use something else just go ahead.

To dig in more:
http://www.chilepepperinstitute.org
photo credit@ msadinit and sarah