Saturday, September 24, 2011

Can you identify these chiles on sale in Serbia and Macedonia?

Question

In the market in Niš, Serbia yesterday there were the most beautiful capsicums (bell peppers, red peppers) and chiles on display that I've ever seen.

But also on sale were these "ugly" ones that I first though were some kind of root vegetable due to their characteristic dull finish. Note also the characteristic "etched" concentric rings going around them:

The chiles in a Serbian market.

My Serbian host has little English and after much effort and phone calls was proud to tell me they are called "hot chille peppers", but hopefully the culinary experts here can find a much more specific name or description.

I don't mind if the only names you can find are in Serbian or some other language, but I am interested to know why they look so different to the shiny chiles and how they are put to use in this part of the world, especially uses which differ to the more familiar looking varieties.

Answer

I've now found them on sale in a posh supermarket in Skopje, Macedonia. This time labelled:

The chiles in a Macedonian supermarket.

потекло скопско

пиперки везени

благи / кг

Which Google Translate massages into:

origin Skopje

peppers embroidered

mild / kg

So an answer is "пиперки везени" or "embroidered peppers", for at least one name used in at least one country. Here is a close-up photo giving a better look at the striations:

Close-up.

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