Chiltepín, also called chile piquín in Mexico, is a tiny wild chilli – just a few millimetres across, but very hot. It grows wild from the southern US to northern South America and is the official “State Native Pepper” of Texas.
| Species | Capsicum annuum var. glabriusculum (wild form) |
|---|---|
| Heat | one of the most pungent C. annuum; measured values vary widely; cultivated ‚NuMex Bailey Piquín‘ 100,000 SHU (NMSU) |
| Range | southern US to northern South America |
| Fruit | round or oblong, 3–6 mm, upright; perennial shrub |
| Other names | chile piquín, chile mosquito, chile de monte, pico de pájaro |
A wild pepper spread by birds
Chiltepín is the wild form of C. annuum: a perennial shrub with tiny upright berries 3–6 mm across. It is the textbook case of “directed deterrence” described by ecologists Tewksbury and Nabhan (2001): capsaicin deters seed-destroying rodents but not birds, which swallow the fruit and disperse the seeds – in field filming in southern Arizona the curve-billed thrasher was the main fruit eater. The Texas resolution also notes that mockingbirds and wild turkeys eat the fruit and that birds play a vital role in the chiltepín’s spread.
Texas’s state pepper
In 1997 the Texas Legislature, by resolution HCR 82, declared the chiltepín the “official State Native Pepper of Texas”. The resolution says the Spanish called it “arrebatado”: its heat is immediate and intense but does not linger long.
Wild harvest in Sonora
In the Mexican state of Sonora, chiltepín is still harvested from the wild. The season runs from September to December depending on rain; green fruit is picked from mid-September, red fetches a better price. The shrubs grow under “nurse plants” such as mesquite. Communities in the Río Sonora valley have changed their practices out of concern about overharvesting, though experts see climate change as a bigger threat.
In the kitchen
Green chiltepín is eaten fresh or pickled in brine or vinegar; dried red ones are crushed into salsa, made into paste or ground with salt. In Sonora it is sprinkled on cocido, pozole, menudo, cheese and dried meat – and even used in jams.
How hot?
Figures differ by an order of magnitude. Mexican lab studies measured roughly 11 to 32 mg of capsaicinoids per gram of dry weight, but their SHU conversions are not reliable; NMSU gives the cultivated ‚NuMex Bailey Piquín‘ 100,000 SHU. Numbers often quoted online have no verifiable source. It is safe to say it is one of the hottest forms of C. annuum.
Related
Thai chilli · Cayenne · History of chilli · Scoville scale
Sources
- Bañuelos N., Salido P. L., Gardea A. (2008): Etnobotánica del chiltepín. Estudios Sociales 16(32). PDF
- Texas Legislature: HCR 82 (1997)
- Tewksbury J. J., Nabhan G. P. (2001). Nature 412: 403–404. doi:10.1038/35086653; University of Florida
- Chambers (2012), Society of Ethnobiology: Chiltepins in Mexico’s Río Sonora valley
- González-Zamora A. et al. (2013). Molecules. doi:10.3390/molecules181113471; Moreno-Ramírez Y. et al. (2018). Molecules. doi:10.3390/molecules23102655
- NMSU: Circular 706