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Tobasco

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Description

This is a mature Tobasco Pepper taken from the produce garden at McKiddy Manor in Keavy, Kentucky. It was placed in a pot so that it could be grown indoors during the winter months. Next spring, it will be placed back in the garden.

The tabasco pepper is a variety of chili pepper species Capsicum frutescens. It is best known through its use in Tabasco sauce, followed by peppered vinegar.

Like all C. frutescens cultivars, the tabasco plant has a typical bushy growth, which commercial cultivation makes stronger by trimming the plants. The tapered fruits, around 4 cm long, are initially pale yellowish-green and turn yellow and orange before ripening to bright red. Tabascos rate from 30,000 to 50,000 on the Scoville scale of heat levels, and are the only variety of chili pepper whose fruits are "juicy"; i.e., they are not dry on the inside. Unlike most chilis, tabasco fruits grow up, rather than hanging down from their stems.

A large part of the tabasco pepper stock fell victim to the tobacco mosaic virus in the 1960s; the first resistant variety (Greenleaf tabasco) was not cultivated until around 1970.

The word tabasco is the name of a Mexican state. The initial letter of tabasco is rendered in lowercase when referring to the botanical variety, but is capitalized when used as a brand name to refer to the pepper’s namesake sauce product, Tabasco sauce.

Until recently, all of the peppers used to make Tabasco sauce were grown on Avery Island, Louisiana. While a small portion of the crop is still grown on the island, the bulk of the crop is now grown in Central and South America, where the weather and the availability of more farmland allow a more predictable and larger year-round supply of peppers. This also helps to ensure the supply of peppers should something happen to the crop at a particular location. All of the seeds are still grown on Avery Island.
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Comments2
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Drudger's avatar
Nice, now all you need is some chili to put it in.