Malagueta pepper facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Malagueta pepper
A sayaca tanager feeding on malagueta peppers
Genus	Capsicum
Species	Capsicum frutescens
Cultivar	'Malagueta'
Heat	Very hot
Scoville scale	60,000–100,000 SHU

The Malagueta pepper is a type of chili pepper that comes from the Capsicum frutescens plant. It's very popular in countries like Brazil, Portugal, Mozambique, and Angola.

This pepper likely got its name from an old spice called melegueta pepper from West Africa. They both had a similar level of spiciness, which is also called piquancy.

Malagueta peppers are small and pointy, usually about 5 centimeters (2 inches) long. They are quite hot, with a heat level of 60,000 to 100,000 Scoville units. This scale measures how spicy a pepper is.

What's in a Name?

When you see Malagueta peppers in markets, they often come in two sizes. Sometimes, these sizes have different names.

• The smaller peppers are called malaguetinha in Brazil.
• In Mozambique and Portugal, the smaller ones are sometimes called piri piri. But be careful! This name is also used for a newer type of pepper from Africa.
• The larger peppers are simply called malagueta in both Brazil and Portugal.

It's important to know that these are not different kinds of peppers. They are just Malagueta peppers picked at different stages of ripeness from the same plant.

In Angola, this pepper has other names like jindungo, ndongo, nedungo, and pripíri. In Cape Verde, people call it malgueta or margueta in their local language, Criola.

A Spicy History

The first Europeans to discover this pepper were the sailors with Christopher Columbus. They found it when they arrived in the Caribbean in 1492. The people living in the Americas at that time loved this pepper. They used it not just for food, but also as a natural dye and even as a medicine.

The Portuguese explorers were very interested in the pepper's spicy kick. This spiciness comes from a chemical called capsaicin. For many years, the Portuguese had been looking for easier ways to get black pepper from Asia, which was very rare and expensive. Columbus's voyages were partly about finding new trade routes for spices and other goods from Asia.

Around the time Columbus reached the Americas, the Portuguese were trading a popular African spice from the Gulf of Guinea. This spice was Aframomum melegueta, also known as melegueta pepper. It was used as a substitute for black pepper. Because the new chili pepper had a similar spiciness to the melegueta pepper, the Portuguese called it malagueta. Even today, some people still confuse Malagueta chili peppers with the older melegueta pepper.

During a time of big changes and travel, known as the Columbian exchange, Portuguese sailors brought this new "malagueta" pepper to Portugal and Brazil. There, it became known as chili, chile, or pimenta. They also took it to Africa, where it became very popular as jindungo and piri-piri. Eventually, it even reached Asia, becoming a key ingredient in curries and other spicy dishes. In less than 100 years, the chili pepper spread from Europe to many other cultures around the world. It became a part of local cooking in places like Arabia, India, Thailand, and China.

Cooking with Malagueta Peppers

This pepper is used to add flavor to many local dishes and sauces in Brazil and Mozambique. In Portugal, it's often used to season chicken dishes and traditional meals.

In Brazil, what is sold as malagueta today might be a newer type of pepper. The original malagueta, which was common 30 years ago, might now be called malaguetinha, malagueta silvestre, or malagueta caipira. Some people think that cumarim or cumari are other names for malagueta, but these are actually different types of peppers. They belong to the Capsicum chinense species.

In the cuisine of São Tomé and Príncipe, a sauce called piri-piri is very common. This sauce is made with malagueta peppers and is often served as a condiment in restaurants there, as well as in Portugal.

In the Dominican Republic, malagueta is mixed with allspice to create a special preparation called pimenta dioica.

See also

In Spanish: Malagueta para niños