Tabasco
The tabasco
pepper a variety of the chile
pepper species Capsicum frutescens. It is best
known through its use in Tabasco
sauce, a trademarked product manufactured by McIlhenny
Company of Avery Island, Louisiana. (The word
"tabasco" is rendered in lowercase when
referring to the botanical variety, but in uppercase,
"Tabasco," when referring to the actual
trademarked brandname.) Even though the word
"tabasco" is the name of a Mexican state, this
variety of pepper was first grown in large quantities in
Louisiana.
Like all
frutescens chilis, 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.
A large part of
the tabasco pepper stock fell victim to the tobacco mosaic
virus in the 1960s, and the first resistant variety (Greenleaf
tabasco) was not able to be cultured until around
1970.
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