Chili-Pepper, Chile, Hot Pepper, Chili

All peppers under this heading are Capsicum annuum. See listings below for individual varieties.

Chili-peppers (the words selected by specialists in the study of capsicums to designate the pungent members of the Capsicum genus) belong to the same Nightshade family that includes among its two thousand species the tomato, potato, eggplant, tamarillo, tobacco, Cape gooseberry, pepino melon, mandrake, petunia, and a remarkable number of other unlikely kin that make me glad I’m not a taxonomist. Chili-peppers, in particular, refuse to be tamed, codified, classified, and otherwise put in their place. Adventurous and spirited, they mix and match, reproduce unpredictably and prolifically, and generally run their own show. But, with the Mexican and South-east Asian food explosions in this country of late, we had best begin to make an effort to understand which is which and how to use them.