Surprising Facts About Chillies!

We dish out everything you need to know about everyone’s favourite spicy ingredient: the chilli.

- Poon Li-Wei

At first glance, it’s easy to mistake the chilli (also known as chilli pepper) as a vegetable. However, with its edible seeds, it’s actually… a fruit! Originating from South America and introduced to the rest of the world by Christopher Columbus, chillies come in many varieties, such as cayenne and jalapeños. It seems unthinkable that chillies were not initially native to this region – but the fiery fruit was actually introduced to Southeast Asia via Portuguese traders.

1. WHAT MAKES CHILLI SPICY?

The answer is a compound known as capsaicin. In order to determine how spicy a chilli is, the Scoville scale was invented by Wilbur Scoville, a pharmacologist, in 1912. He would prepare the chillies in a solution and have five people test it – increasing its dilution until the sensation of heat dissipated. The level of dilution needed for the heat sensation to disappear would be the score on the scale. For a clearer idea, the japaleño pepper is about 2,500 to 5,000 Scoville Heat Units compared to bird’s eye chilli (cili padi), which is about 50,000 to 100,000 Scoville Heat Units.

2. KEEP THE HEAT DOWN!