Breeding the Giant Pepper
Beginning in the 1880s tastes shifted in favor of the large sweet pepper. In Europe and America breeders expanded the dimensions of the old bull nose sweet pepper—now the bell pepper—and lengthening the twisted long peppers until they grew eight inches long and sported the nickname “elephant’s trunk” of “Spanish Monstrous”. There was a culinary driver for this shift: the popularization of the stuffed pepper. Small bell peppers permitted simple stuffings. Larger vehicles permitted more elaborate forcemeats and salads. European growers in 1880 embraced the irregularly shaped Procopp’s Reisen-pfeffer, or as the French styled it, the Piment monstrueux. It had been bred from a less lengthy less tasty variety called The Emperor. Procopp’s plants bore ten to fifteen sweet red fruits on an oddly modest stalk. . By mid-1880s American seed brokers offered seed, and the major companies bred it to make it more regular.
The food value of sweet peppers was not appreciated as greatly in the United States as in Europe. While the piquant bird peppers, tobacco, and cayenne were deemed valuable as flavoring components in composite dishes, the nutritive value of the sweet pepper, or bull nose pepper was inhabited by the relative unproductivity of sweet pepper plants. The Procopp’s was one of the first varieties to bear profusely. It was also distinctively meaty.
W. Atlee Burpee (1858-1915) was the seedsman who envisioned an America that feasted on massive sweet bell peppers. He procured seed from Europe and Central America, intent on creating varieties that had three distinctive appeals: intense, gem like color, gigantic size, and mellow sweetness on the tongue. His initial stock of European varieties included the Spanish Monstrous and the Sweet Mountain, both large varieties. At first he imported European seed and improved it on his Pennsylvania plots. But in the late 1880s he began hybridizing peppers with a vengeance. The Ruby King Pepper was Burpee’s first international hit: more regular than Procopp’s with the same 8-inch length. It crossed the Spanish Monstrous with the large bell pepper. [Burpee’s Farm Annual 1881, 20.]
Burpee was not shy it broadcasting the virtues of the Ruby Giant: “The magnificent variety is the best mild red pepper for market or family use. The large, handsome fruits, of a bright ruby-red color, grow four and a half to six inches long by three and a half to four and a quarater inches through. Added to their beautiful color when ripe, is the great desideratum that they are remarkably mild and pleasant to the taste; most excellent for stuffing or for pepper hash.”
[Burpee’s Farm Annual 1897, p. 65.]
There were only two liabilities in Burpee’s eyes with the Ruby Giant: it had too many creases in it, and its tapered bottom did not permit it to stand up securely in a baking tray, a requirement for baked stuffed peppers. He crossed selected squarish bell peppers with Ruby King selections with minimal creasing. It sought a more noble cinnabar red color. In 1900 he introduced the result of his breeding experiments: the Chinese Giant—Chinese not in terms of biological heritage, but the shade of color achieved in the pepper’s ripe skin. It was over an inch large in every direction than the Ruby king and often could stand on its flat dimpled bottom. In a way it achieved a kind of perfection for a sweet pepper.
Burpee may have achieved a kind of perfection in terms of an eating pepper, but other forces were at work in the world. The state and county fairs of the United States had become smitten with giantism. The Chinese Giant had good color, great taste, simple shape. If could only be as big as Procopp’s Giant! T. M. White of Little Silver decided to cut to the chase, crossing the Chinese Giant with Procopp’s Giant, creating the Magnum Dulce, averaging 7 inches long and attaining 18 inches in circumference. A single pepper might weigh a pound and a quarter. 21 Magnums could fill a bushel basket. [“Notes from the Rural Grounds,” The Rural New Yorker (November 1907), 857.] While these behemoth’s might dazzle the eyes of vegetable judges, they exceeded the capacity of all but the most battle tested trenchermen to consumed a stuffed Magnum Dulce in a sitting.
By 1910 a kind of optimum had been reached in this breeding direction: sweetness, mildness, coloration, configuration, and size had hit upon a maximally marketable sweet red pepper. The improvements rendered in years to come would be in terms of disease resistance and productivity.
Peppers with more heat, pronounced flavor, and application as a dried or powdered substance would dominate pepper breeding in the subsequent century..
Postscript: a word about Pepper Hash. This name was one of the more imprecise of the early 20th century, encompassing a hot cabbage slaw seasoned with much black pepper and vinegar to a relish made of sweet bell peppers. A standard recipe for the latter included 3 lbs onions, 2 lbs red peppers, 2 lbs green peppers, 1 quart of vinegar, and 1 lb of sugar. This was all cooked and canned.