Hot chillies

Hot chillies are plants of the nightshade family, Solanaceae, notably capsicum annuum (such as the jalapino), capsicum frutescens (e.g. bird's eye and tabasco chilies), and capsicum chinense (such as habanero and scotch bonnet). There are thousands of different varieties of chillies, varying in pungency from zero to incendiary.
Chilli Peppers were first grown in central and South America and taken to Europe in 1493 by Diego Alvarez, a surgeon with Columbus's second exploration. They were called "peppers" because of the visual similarities with capsicums. Chilli heat didn't really set Europe ablaze and so nothing much is heard of them there for several centuries.
Naga chillies
In Asia, where peppercorns were already being used as a pungent spice, it was a different story. Chilli use spread throughout Asia like wildfire, but facilitated not by the Spanish but by the Portuguese. Chilli seeds first arrived in the Indian sub-continent shortly after the Portuguese invasion of Goa in 1510 and quickly spread throughout India.
Fairly frequent chilli use eventually arrived into Europe in the 19th Century, partly a result of Arab influence in the Mediterranean and partly because of returning British soldiers and merchants who had acquired a taste in India.
Until 1868, it was thought that the chilli pepper had actually originated in India.
In the USA it was a similar story. Although the source of the chilli plant was central and South America, it took the addiction by African slaves to hot chillies to bring them to the USA. Even today, chilli consumption is higher in the southern USA than the north.
The hottest chilli in the world is reckoned to be the Naga Jolokia, also known as Naga Jolokia, Naga Morich, Naga Dorset, Bhut Jolokia, Bih Jolokia and Raja Mirchi. According to The Guinness Book Of Records this is the most pungent of them all at over 1 million (out of 1,000,000!) Scovilles! Naga chillies are short, bullet-shaped and range from orange to a deep red when fully ripe. It is said that anyone eating a whole Naga Dorset chilli would require hospital treatment.
Hot chillies indeed.

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