The pods of this variety are quite small, cone-shaped, coral-red when ripe, intensely acrid, and furnish the Cayenne Pepper of commerce. Like the other species of the family, it is of tropical origin; and being a perennial, and of a shrubby character, will not succeed in open culture at the North.
Both the green and ripe pods are used as pickles, and also for making Chili vinegar or pepper-sauce; which is done by simply putting a handful of the pods in a bottle, afterwards filled with the best vinegar, and stopping it closely. In a few weeks, it will be fit for use.
The process of preparing Cayenne Pepper is as follows. The pods are gathered when fully ripe. "In India, they are dried in the sun; but in cooler climates they should be dried on a slow hot-plate, or in a moderately heated oven: they are then pulverized, and sifted through a fine sieve, mixed with salt, and, when dried, put into close, corked bottles, for the purpose of excluding the air. This article is subject to great adulteration, flour being often mixed with it; and, still worse, red lead, which is much of the same color, and greatly increases the weight.
"A better method is to dry the pods in a slow oven, split them open, extract the seeds, and then pulverize them (the pods) to a fine powder, sifting the powder through a thin muslin sieve, and pulverizing the parts that do not pass through, and sifting again, until the whole is reduced to the finest possible state. Place the powder in air-tight glass bottles; but add no salt or other ingredient whatever."—M'Int.
The pods of either of the long-fruited sorts, or those of the Cherry-pepper, prepared as above, will furnish a quality of "Cayenne" Pepper greatly superior to that ordinarily sold by grocers, or even by apothecaries and druggists.
The larger and milder kinds, powdered in the same manner, make a wholesome and pleasant grade of pepper of sufficient pungency for a majority of palates.
Cherry-Pepper.
Capsicum cerasiforme.
Cherry-pepper.