Piri piri ( ), often hyphenated or as one word, and with variant spellings peri-peri () or pili pili, is a

cultivar A cultivar is a kind of Horticulture, cultivated plant that people have selected for desired phenotypic trait, traits and which retains those traits when Plant propagation, propagated. Methods used to propagate cultivars include division, root a ...

of '' Capsicum frutescens'' from the malagueta pepper. It was originally produced by Portuguese explorers in Portugal's former Southern African territories and then spread to other Portuguese domains.

Etymology

''Pilipili'' in Swahili means "pepper". Other

romanization In linguistics, romanization is the conversion of text from a different writing system to the Latin script, Roman (Latin) script, or a system for doing so. Methods of romanization include transliteration, for representing written text, and tra ...

s include ''pili pili'' in the

Democratic Republic of the Congo The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), also known as the DR Congo, Congo-Kinshasa, or simply the Congo (the last ambiguously also referring to the neighbouring Republic of the Congo), is a country in Central Africa. By land area, it is t ...

and ''peri peri'' in

Malawi Malawi, officially the Republic of Malawi, is a landlocked country in Southeastern Africa. It is bordered by Zambia to the west, Tanzania to the north and northeast, and Mozambique to the east, south, and southwest. Malawi spans over and ...

, deriving from various pronunciations of the word in different parts of Bantu-speaking Africa. The ''peri peri'' spelling is common in English due to its use in

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...

, however, in Portugal and Portuguese-speaking countries such as Mozambique, where the modern usage of the pepper originates, the spelling ''piri-piri'' is used. The '' Oxford Dictionary of English'' records ''piri-piri'' as a foreign word meaning "a very hot sauce made with red ", and gives its ultimate origin as the word for "pepper" (presumably in the native-African sense) in the Ronga language of southern Mozambique, where Portuguese explorers developed the homonymous

from malagueta pepper.

Plant characteristics

Plants are usually very bushy and grow in height to with leaves long and wide. The fruits are generally tapered to a blunt point and measure up to long. The immature pod colour is green; the mature colour is bright red or purple. Some bird's-eye chili varieties measure up to 175,000 Scoville heat units.

Cultivation

Like all chili peppers, peri-peri is descended from plants from the Americas, but it has grown in the wild in Africa for centuries and is now cultivated commercially in Zambia, Uganda, Malawi, Zimbabwe and Rwanda. It grows mainly in Malawi, Ethiopia, Zambia, South Africa, Ghana, Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Portugal. It is cultivated for both commercial food processing and the pharmaceutical industry. Cultivation of peri-peri is labor-intensive.

Piri-piri sauce

Piri-piri

sauce In cooking, a sauce is a liquid, cream, or semi- solid food, served on or used in preparing other foods. Most sauces are not normally consumed by themselves; they add flavour, texture, and visual appeal to a dish. ''Sauce'' is a French wor ...

was produced by mixing pepper with condiments the Portuguese traded with their other territories in

Asia Asia ( , ) is the largest continent in the world by both land area and population. It covers an area of more than 44 million square kilometres, about 30% of Earth's total land area and 8% of Earth's total surface area. The continent, which ...

and

India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...

. The first sauce may have been produced in any part of Portugal's empire, given the lack of reliable sources that it was specifically mixed right there in Mozambique, it seems impossible to say more than the

was originally produced within the

Portuguese Empire The Portuguese Empire was a colonial empire that existed between 1415 and 1999. In conjunction with the Spanish Empire, it ushered in the European Age of Discovery. It achieved a global scale, controlling vast portions of the Americas, Africa ...

, either in their territories in

Southern Africa Southern Africa is the southernmost region of Africa. No definition is agreed upon, but some groupings include the United Nations geoscheme for Africa, United Nations geoscheme, the intergovernmental Southern African Development Community, and ...

or elsewhere. The sauce is made from piri-piri chilis (used as a seasoning or marinade). Beyond Portugal and the Southern African region (Angola, Namibia, Mozambique and South Africa) where it is very popular, the sauce is particularly well known in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

due to the success of the South African restaurant chain Nando's. Recipes vary from region to region, and sometimes within the same region depending on intended use (for example, cooking vs. seasoning at the table) but the key ingredients are chili and garlic, with an oily or acidic base. Other common ingredients are salt, lemon, spirits (namely whisky), citrus peel, onion, pepper, bay leaves, paprika, pimiento, basil, oregano and tarragon.

References

External links