The Jalapeno pepper came to us from the spicy pepper family. Despite its small size, the pepper is extremely spicy. It comes in both red and green colors. It became famous thanks to the Mexicans because they used it only in their kitchen, and over time it gained fans worldwide. Jalapenos are very healthy and rich in nutrients.
In this article, you will find if the Jalapeno is a fruit or a vegetable. Also, it makes it to the list of vegetables that are fruits.
What is it?
Jalapeño, or in Spanish, jalapeño, refers to a subspecies of hot chili peppers. Jalapeno peppers are named after the Mexican city of Jalapa, located in Veracruz, and are considered the leading producer and supplier of jalapeno peppers. Jalapeno peppers differ by their miniature size. The average weight of the plant’s fruit reaches 50 grams, and the length of the jalapeno pepper rarely exceeds 9 centimeters. However, the most valuable are small jalapeno peppers, which do not exceed 5 centimeters.
Jalapeno peppers usually mature 80 days after the end of the flowering period. Jalapeno peppers are harvested green and then gathered in a variety of ways. Jalapeno peppers are cultivated commercially in Mexico. Typically, a Capsicum annuum or Vegetable pepper variety plant reaches no more than a meter in height. No more than 35 fruits are harvested from one plant in one growth cycle. It is noteworthy that when ripe, the jalapeno pepper pods begin to turn red.
Green jalapenos are used in Mexico to make national salsa or fresh pickled pods. Red or overripe jalapeno peppers are considered not so good in taste. However, the product can retain its flavor and consumer properties for a longer time. Therefore, red jalapeno peppers are dried and ground into seasoning or buried in the ground as fertilizer. Green jalapeno peppers differ by their degree of taste. This concept defines an indicator of the hotness or pungency of a pepper.
The spice of jalapeno peppers may vary. It all depends on where the jalapeno pepper grew, how it was grown and prepared. Foodies say jalapeno peppers can start warm and end up with a hot sensation temperature. There is no single variety of jalapeno peppers that differ in taste’s growth region, appearance, and temperature of pungency. Perhaps the following types of jalapeno peppers can be distinguished: peludo or pepper, which is characterized by long espinalteco pods or sharp-pointed Morita pepper, the short and oblong jalapeno pepper, most famous in our latitudes.
Jalapeno peppers are eaten fresh in salads and make great meat, fish, and vegetable dishes. Jalapeno peppers are often present in hot sauces. True connoisseurs and gourmets have appreciated stuffed jalapeno peppers, and this dish is considered a delicacy.
It is a vegetable crop, but the versions that Jalapeno is a fruit or a vegetable also have their reasons. Someone calls bell peppers a fruit because it is flowering plant. And it multiplies with the help of seeds that are inside the fruit.
The opinion that it is advisable to consider the Bulgarian pepper as a berry is correct, considering the shape of the fruit. One encyclopedia states that the fruit of a vegetable pepper is a false hollow berry.
The generally accepted point of view “bell peppers is a vegetable” is also true. It has developed historically and is supported because bell peppers do not have a pronounced sweet taste, like fruits, and in cooking, pepper is part of the main course and not a dessert (like berries and fruits ). Based on the biological characteristics of the fruit, you can call it a fruit.
Application in folk medicine
Pepper powder is helpful for cardiovascular diseases, for increasing the elasticity and strength of the artery walls. People make tinctures from the pepper that are effective for arthritis and arthrosis. Ingestion can improve appetite.
The immunostimulating properties of peppers and their beneficial effect in depressive conditions have been revealed. Regular intake can improve the quality of sleep, improve vision.
Application in cosmetology
Cosmetologists prepare hair masks with pepper additives that improve hair growth and help with hair loss problems. Face masks are also made from pulp, as pepper has an antiseptic and anti-aging effect. Pepper has a pronounced anti-cellulite property.
Useful properties of Jalapeno
Based on Jalapeno, tinctures, and decoctions, lotions are prepared. The range of applications of the vegetable is quite extensive since it has a beneficial effect on all vital human body processes.
The benefits of hot peppers are as follows:
- Provides prevention of diseases of the heart and vascular system, increases the elasticity and tone of the walls of blood vessels.
- Reduces the concentration of cholesterol in the blood.
- Restores and improves metabolism.
- Acts as a catalyst for metabolic processes in the digestive system.
- Strengthens vision.
- It has a positive effect on the condition and appearance of hair and skin.
- Eliminates insomnia.
- It relieves the manifestations of diabetes mellitus
- Normalizes intestinal microflora.
What does the fetus look like?
The pepper is a hollow berry. Inside, at the very base of the fruit, there are many of its seeds. The color of the fruit can be from green to bright red. Green fruits in most species are characterized by an insufficient degree of maturity.
Typically, the fruit is picked when it turns yellow, orange, or red, depending on the type of vegetable pepper. Their weight can vary from 0.25 to 200 grams.
A brief history of the origin
How many years ago was pepper discovered, and where was it brought to Russia from? Pepper first met Columbus in 1492, discovering America. Homeland of pepper, however, wild, Mexico and Central America. After settling in America, people ate sweet peppers, and before that, people ennobled the culture. They started breeding home varieties.
Botanical description and characteristics
The culture is a shrub plant. Even though the shrub is perennial, pepper is grown as an annual plant in vegetable gardening. Which family does the Bulgarian species belong to? It belongs to the class of dicotyledonous flowering plants, the Solanaceae family (the basis for considering pepper as a berry from botany).
The leaves of the shrub are single and long, collected in rosettes. Their color can be from green to dark olive.
How does it bloom?
Peppers begin to bloom around the beginning or middle of summer when planted in the spring.
The flower appears first. Its petals can be white with yellow or purple interspersed at the base.
Flowers are usually large, axillary, and tied in bunches. After the petals fall off, small roots are visible at the base of the color, which will later grow into full-fledged peppers. This root crop ripens just during flowering, so during this period, it is essential to care for the plant properly: water it on time, fertilize it.
Well, just everyone remembered that watermelon is a berry, and then it turns out that it is not a berry either. What is it! But it turns out that this fruit is called pumpkin because it differs from a berry in many seeds inside and a hard shell. Pumpkins also include cucumber (it turns out, not quite a vegetable) and melon. And, of course, the pumpkin itself.
What, then, is a Jalapeno?
Yes, of course, we are not talking about agricultural classification now, but about pure botany.
So, from the point of view of this botany, Jalapeno, both hot and sweet, are false berries. More precisely, the fruit of the capsicum is defined as follows: a false hollow poly-seeded berry.
In everyday life, we call berries any small fruit that we can eat in one fell swoop. And from the point of view of botany, berries are fruits covered with thin skin. They have one or more grains inside and develop only from the ovary. In general, science defines berries stricter, for example, strawberries. Our summer favorite is a false berry, not a real one. It does not correspond to the definition given by botany and strawberries – after all, they have bones outside and not inside. Also, the ovary is involved in developing the fruit in strawberries, but this is also against the “berry rules.” Moreover, rose hips are also false berries.
Raspberry – what could it be? Only a berry! But no, this is not a berry, but a drupe. The fruit consists of many smaller fruits, each with its shell, softcore, and bone inside. Drupes include blackberries, cloudberries, and also cherries: drupe fruit – plum and peach. And guess which fruit is considered the closest relative of cherries from the point of view of botany! It turns out to be a coconut.
Conclusion
You got the answer if the Jalapeno is a fruit or a vegetable. I was the one who used to think that the jalapenos are vegetables, so it falls under the list of vegetables that are fruits.