Let’s take a short journey into the infinite world of chillies, discovering the aromatic characteristics

More and more people claim to be careful about selecting foods and treating them so as to avoid sickness and illness. Food education, thanks also to the digitization of this gourmet learning process of health and well-being has undergone a sharp acceleration, enhancing the culture of nutrition and well-being. In fact, prevention, physical activity and ageing are elements directly linked to daily diet, the cooking industry along with scientific discoveries over the last twenty years. Thanks to all these above factors people come out more informed, knowledgeable, demanding, but also curious and willing to experience new sensory balance and is open minded with other gourmet cultures.

I have structured my dishes in a way that I can awaken,measure and interpret individual portions as a result of perception not only through the senses of sight and taste, but also of hearing, touch and especially smell because the dishes are balanced and left to eat with your eyes and nose before your mouth. From the palate and olfactory point of view we can divide the chillies into the five most widely used species. There are twenty six known species of chillies, although we only use five species which are cultivated and sold for commercial use. Each of these five varieties differ from each other: Capsicum annuum, Capsicum frutescens, Capsicum chinense, Capsicum baccatum and Capsicum pubescens. The varieties included in the Capsicum annuum species (with SHU 1000-4000) are characterized by an almost instantaneous perception at the time of chewing. The spicy sensation attacks and encircles the entire oral cavity immediately, it is pungent, while the perception time is limited. The aroma and the aftertaste are characterized by fruity notes, typical note for this species is the note of pepper. They are part of the species: Calabrian Round, Friarello, Jalapeño (which has very particular aromatic characteristics). Similar are the aromatic notes found in Capsicum baccatumanche as the spiciness is less aggressive. They are part of the species: Bird Pepper, Aji Amarillo, Hot Lemon.

In my next blog post I will explain the difference of perception and time and persistence in the oral cavity, and we will talk about the aromatic characteristics of the Capsicum chinense, including the famous Habanero, Trindidad, Carolina Reaper.