[CH] Peppers & Shade & Vodka
Rob Solarion (solarion@1starnet.com)
Wed, 1 Aug 2001 12:05:18 -0600
Dear Chile-Heads : The following article was in Monday's Dallas Morning
News. What does it mean by chiles' loving the shade?
CHILI PEPPER CHEMICAL DETERS SOME ANIMALS
By Betsy Morton
The chemical responsible for a chili pepper's heat ensures that only
certain animals will eat the pepper.
Small mammals such as mice that might be tempted to snack on the chili's
low shrubs are put off by the chemical capsaicon. Birds, however, are
undaunted.
The evolutionary reason for this selective deterrence may be that birds are
effective at spreading seeds while mammals are not. In a study appearing
in this week's NATURE, researchers used chilis that don't have capsaicon to
show that seeds ingested by the mammals did not grow, while seeds eaten by
birds grew as often as seeds that hadn't been eaten at all.
Furthermore, the birds spread the seeds to shady spots ideal for chilis.
End Of Article. Also, there was another article that appeared in the Food
Section of The Dallas News several weeks ago. I clipped it to send but
never did, so here it is. It is a snip from a longer book review by Sharon
Hudgins, a Texas frelance writer.
"THE PEPPER TRAIL tells how peppers traveled from the Western Hemisphere to
the rest of the world after Christopher Columbus' voyage in 1492. Ms.
[Jean] Andrews explains the confusion of chile names (and spellings) in
many regions. And she devotes one chapter to chile types, illustrated by
her line drawings of fresh and dried peppers.
"Chiles get their heat from capsaicin, a colorless, odorless substance
located mainly in the veins. Many chileheads have discovered that drinking
milk or eating yogurt can cool the flame. Ms. Andrews has another
solution: 'For your burning mouth, try using vodka as a mouthwash and
gargle, then spit it out. ... Cheap vodka works just as well!'"
That was news to me. Has anybody ever heard that before? My apologies if
these topics have been covered already. There are many digests that I do
not read very thoroughly. Thanks & Bon Appetit! Roberto