Sweet and red
Simon Courtauld
In France they call them piments dour, in Spain pimientos and in Italy peperoni. In this country they are known as sweet peppers, or bell peppers, or capsicums, or pimentos (the last name usually describing those cone-shaped sweet red peppers which look like huge chillies). Paprika is made from sweet peppers, cayenne and tabasco sauce from chillies, of which there are countless varieties, most of them grown in Mexico. The hottest of all is the habanero.
That's enough facts for one paragraph, and enough, too, on the subject of chillies, which are not really suited to a column on the English kitchen garden, though some of them can be grown here. Until the last century sweet peppers were seldom grown in this country, and it is probably safe to say that until the early 1950s, when Elizabeth David introduced post-war, foodrationed Britain to Mediterranean cooking, most people would never have eaten or even heard of them. (Going back a hundred years from that time, Thackeray put red peppers into his 'Ballad of Bouillabaisse', but they are not normally found among the ingredients of this Provencal fish soup.)
For those who grow sweet peppers, under glass, this is the month to harvest them. When I last grew them, I remember leaving some on the plant in the hope that they would turn from green to red and become sweeter, but they never got beyond a streaky reddish-purple colour, and their flavour was no better than when they were green. These days the peppers on supermarket shelves are green, yellow and red throughout the year, and I am always slightly mystified as to how the growers are able always to produce such
uniform colours. It must be a matter of choosing the right varieties: seedsmen such as Edwin Tucker & Sons of Newton Abbot, Devon and Suffolk Herbs of Kelvedon, Essex have quite a number whose names suggest that they are bred to turn yellow and red.
About strips of raw peppers in a salad I have no particular feelings. They don't seem to add much, except colour; but they are certainly worth dipping into a mayonnaise or bagna cauda. When cooked, however, they do come into their own: they are no longer indigestible and their flavours (this is truer of the red and yellow than the green) are released. You don't have to skin the peppers, but if blackened under a hot grill they can be easily peeled, becoming soft and sweet and suitable for stewing in garlic and olive-oil and eating with cold roast lamb.
There are, of course, sweet peppers and not so sweet peppers; some commercial varieties may be bitter, others almost tasteless. In supermarkets I tend to go for the red ones, which seem to me more likely to be sweet and are those favoured by Delia Smith for that delicious, originally Italian dish of peppers halved and stuffed with tomatoes, chopped garlic and anchovies, then baked in olive-oil and sprinkled with basil. All sorts of mixtures are used for stuffing peppers: minced meat and breadcrumbs are often recommended, also rice and herbs, and even macaroni cheese.
I once had fried peppers and breadcrumbs for breakfast in Spain, while attending a matanza (annual pig-killing) one cold winter's morning on a farm in Estremadura. They seemed entirely appropriate for the occasion, though I think I would rather eat them later in the day. Also in Spain, peppers are popular with fish, especially hake and tuna, which may be dusted with paprika before baking in the oven and serving with boiled potatoes. I note that this month's news-sheet from the Wine Society offers a recipe for seared tuna steaks with a caramelised salsa of diced red and yellow peppers (the Society has definitely caught up with wine and food fashions in recent years) and suggests a young Fleurie to go with the dish.
North of the border, in the French Basque country, where I shall be this weekend, sweet peppers are to be found on every menu, often with chicken dishes. In the town of Espelette, south of Bayonne, pointed peppers can be seen hanging from the white walls of the houses, and on the last Sunday in October every worshipper at Mass is given a string of the dried peppers, which are used to make a local paprika known as piment basquais.
And then there is the wonderful piperade, a sort of scrambled egg dish made with onion, tomatoes, red and green peppers (with perhaps a little of the Espelette pepper as well), garlic and herbs. This I hope to be enjoying for dinner on Sunday after the bullfight.
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