Native to Mexico, chilies are found in a whole range of varieties. Fresh, dried or powdered, round or long, yellow, red, green, brown or garnet-colored. Chilies occupy a favored place in the Caribbean, not only as a daily food source, but in medicine as well. In ancient times, Mayan healers recommended them as a remedy for all sorts of illnesses, from coughing to constipation.
But for the newcomer to the Caribbean, chilies can prove to be elusive and mystifying little critters. Which are hot and which are not? Which are peppers and which are chilies? How do you cut the heat? Why are some red and some green?
A CHILI, IS A CHILI, IS A PEPPER?? 
All peppers and chilies are, technically speaking, chilies, members of the genus Capsicum in the family Solanaceae. They are all of New World origin and close relatives tomatoes and potatoes, and also related to the old world Eggplant and Nightshade. There is only a one gene difference between a sweet "pepper," and a hot "chili." The confusion between the names began when the first Europeans arrived in the New World.
For centuries, Europeans had obtained their spices through trade with Eastern cultures reached by overland travel. The spice road was long and arduous, fraught with numerous dangers making the coveted seasonings expensive and scarce. Pepper, one of the most coveted of the spices was so expensive that you could buy a fine horse for 6 peppercorns.
This situation was one of the major contributing factors in the exploration of the possibility of traveling by sea to reach the lands where the spices grew. Explorers such as Columbus began to sail West instead of traveling overland to the East. What these explorers had not counted on was
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running into the then unknown American continents in the middle of the ocean.
When they arrived in this new land and were served native dishes by the indigenous people, dishes spiked with "chilies," they assumed that the heat was from "pepper." And so, by a fluke of accident or misunderstanding, chilies, have been called peppers ever since.
What about the different colors? All chilies and peppers will change color as they ripen. Usually a chili will start as a shade of green, move to yellowish, then orange, and lastly to red. Some chilies will be genetically bred to be red, even when immature. When cooking with chilies, different flavors and levels of ‘hotness’ will be brought out at different stages of maturity.
 FEEL THE BURN!
What makes chilies burn the tongue? The answer has nothing to do with ‘heat’, but rather the active chemical ingredient in all chilies, Capsaicin (cap-say-a-sin). Capsaicin stimulates pain receptors on the tongue, and this in turn causes us to feel the sensation of heat when we bite into a chili. The more capsaicin a chili contains, the more number of pain receptors stimulated, and the ‘hotter’ a chili tastes! For an idea of how ‘hot’ a chili can get, check out the ‘Heat-o-meter’ below!
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