Cayenne/American pepper 299
16.1 Introduction
American pepper (synonyms: chilli, chile, azi, cayenne, hot pepper, sweet pepper) is
a popular commercial crop valued for its fruit colour, flavour, spice, vegetable and
nutrition it provides to several food items. Plants are a dicotyledonous and short-
lived perennial herb of the Solanaceae (nightshade) family and are commercially
cultivated as an annual and perennial in kitchen gardens. Among the five cultivated
species of Capsicum, C. annuum is the most commonly cultivated for pungent (hot
pepper) and non-pungent (sweet pepper) fruits and has worldwide commercial
distribution. The sweet pepper is often called bell pepper because the majority of
sweet pepper cultivars grown worldwide have bell-shaped fruits. India, China, Korea,
Hungary, Spain, Nigeria, Thailand, Turkey, Kenya, Sudan, Uganda, Japan, Ethiopia,
Indonesia, Pakistan, Mexico are the major pepper-growing countries.
The tap root consists of a main root with lateral roots with uniform distribution on
the main axis and the occurrence of adventitious roots is very rare in pepper. Stems
are branched, erect or semi-prostrate, fleshy often woody at the base, round or slightly
angular growth normally indeterminate. Flowers are small, terminal but due to form
of branching, appear to be axillary, small calyx, rotate companulate corolla and 5–6
stamens, which are inserted near the base of corolla. Unlike other members of the
nightshade family, viz., tomato, eggplant and potato, pepper leaves uniquely lack
phenols. Hence it has been postulated that nature has provided a pepper capsaicinoids
(pungency) pathway to protect plants from enemies. This could be viewed as an
analogue of the phenol pathway present in other members of the nightshade family.
Nutritional compositions of pepper fruits depend on the genotype and fruit maturity
stage. In general, 100 g of green fruits contain 85.7 g moisture, 2.9 g protein, 0.6 g
fat, 1.0 g minerals, 6.8 g fibres, 3.0 g carbohydrates, 30 mg calcium, 24 mg magnesium,
0.39 mg riboflavin, 67 mg oxalic acid, 0.9 mg nicotinic acid, 80 mg phosphorus, 1.2
mg iron, 6.5 mg sodium, 217 mg potassium, 1.55 copper mg, 34 mg sulphur, 15 mg
chlorine, 0.19 mg thiamine, 292 IU vitamin A and 111 mg vitamin C. Green fruits of
hot and sweet peppers are one of the richest sources of antioxidative vitamins such
16 Cayenne/American pepper.....................................................................
S. Kumar, R. Kumar and J. Singh, Indian Institute of Vegetable
Research, India