Chilies – Not just for fire-eaters

“Explore it a little, preferably with the tip of your tongue.” Alexander Hicks grins behind his full beard. He is a chili expert, so caution is advised. However, Alexander Hicks has not handed us the fruit of the rocoto chili—his favorite variety—but rather a small, white blossom with a violet edge. Like a bee with its proboscis, we cautiously explore its interior with the tip of our tongues. The taste of the nectar spreads through the mouth, very sweet yet full of fruit. How lovely this plant can appear. “Tastes fantastic, right?” Alexander Hicks is pleased with the successful surprise. The trained gardener has dedicated his life to the vast and highly diverse cosmos of the pungent fruit. Hicks cultivates over 800 varieties in five greenhouses, as well as in a 400-square-meter open-air area on the grounds of a former flower nursery. The site is located in the industrial area of Wildeck, a sleepy town in northeastern Hesse, close to the border with Thuringia. The greenhouses vary in height; some are built with clear glass, others with corrugated glass for diffuse light, or with plastic films. This allows Hicks to cultivate the different varieties under varying temperature and light conditions.
“In the open field, for example, we grow those that need a strong fluctuation in temperature between day and night—such as the perennial rocoto.” This chili variety has been cultivated in the high mountains of the Andes for thousands of years. It is considered particularly easy to digest because its heat acts only in the mouth and not in the digestive tract. Nevertheless, rocotos bear the nickname “Gringo-Killer” in South America. In any case, the exotic names alone are worth a discovery: Chocolate Cherry Bomb, Pusztagold, Charapita, Roter Augsburger, Habanero Maya Red, Sugar Rush Stripey, or King Arthur. Most of the plants here are wrapped in fine, tight-meshed nets. “So they don’t go cheating,” says Hicks. Meaning, they don’t cross-pollinate with other specimens via bees or the wind. After all, he wants to select and propagate the best individuals of the individual varieties in order to sell young plants and seeds to chili fans, particularly in Germany and Austria, as well as throughout Europe. Above all, however, he wants to preserve the diversity of this fascinating fruit plant, which threatens to be lost due to the cultivation of fewer and fewer varieties in the growing countries.

Living up to its name: Trinidad Purple Coffee.

Veiled beauties: Tight-meshed nets prevent the plants from cross-pollinating uncontrollably with the help of bees or wind.

One of Alexander Hicks' pillars is the sale of young chili plants.

Chilies are also subject to the mechanisms and contradictions of the global agricultural industry
For Peru, for example, an agricultural professor from Hicks’ international network predicts that three-quarters of the chili varieties common there will no longer be cultivated in the coming decades because more and more producers are focusing on fewer and fewer varieties for export. The chili is also subject to the mechanisms and contradictions of the global agricultural industry. For instance, Mexico is simultaneously the largest exporter of chilies to the whole world and the largest importer of the fruit from China. “I want to preserve as many varieties as possible,” says Hicks. That is not always economical, because not all varieties are in equal demand from his customers. But it is extremely important. Consequently, the planting tables in the entrance area of the greenhouses, where the unpackaged young plants that he has not yet shipped are standing, are colorful and varied. They are red, violet, brown, green, orange, or yellow, some even with stripes and marbling. Most of the fruits have plump, smooth skin. Others dry out and shrivel while still on the plant. “Elephant Trunk” looks like a miniature elephant trunk, “Red Mushroom” like an inverted mushroom cloud, and “Chupetinho” like a heart. Some fruits could pass for tomatoes, others as berries or cherries. There are pointed, crooked, egg-shaped, spherical, or corkscrew-twisted ones. They grow with the tip straight up or hang down like ripe, heavy grapes. The “Peter Pepper” variety is said to look like the male sex organ. “I don’t have that in my assortment,” says Hicks. To document the variety, the expert and his team photograph all the plants. Two white-lined boxes are ready in the anteroom for this purpose. “In addition to the flavors, the appearance of the plant and fruit as well as the stories behind each variety are decisive criteria for customers.” Hicks offers workshops and consulting on the subject, grows rocoto in southwest Germany for the food retail trade, operates a forum with several thousand registered users, and runs this location for seed and young plant production, which he manages for a large seed company. Most of his customers order seeds and young plants as private enthusiasts. They have eaten a dish with a very specific chili variety on a trip to Thailand or Mexico that they want to recreate, vary dishes like chili con carne with different species, or experiment with unusual chili creations—such as jams, cookies, honey, oil, chocolate, or fruit. After successfully growing chili plants, there are often too many fruits. So, methods of preservation such as smoking, pickling, candying, freezing, or drying are in demand. Alexander Hicks has been hooked on the chili for over 40 years. His father is from Texas, where the family lived during his first years of life. There, the one-year-old Alexander tasted his first chili in a Mexican restaurant. Back in Germany, he began cultivating in his grandmother's garden at the age of seven. “It escalated very quickly after that.” After three years, there were almost four hundred varieties. After taking a detour through a mechanical engineering degree, Hicks began his training as a gardener in ornamental plant cultivation. “I quickly ‘chilified’ the training company.” He reads about chilies, cooks and tries out recipes, ferments chilies with yogurt, or stirs chili pastes with Peruvian wild marigolds. Hicks maintains contacts with the Chili Pepper Institute at New Mexico State University, the Agricultural University in Lima, and other scientific institutions, and organizes sambal oelek workshops and symposia.

Trepadeira do Werner was named after its discoverer, Werner Mathi, who found it in the Amazon.

Extracting the seeds requires fine motor skills and patience.

Not all varieties offer the same amount of seeds; for some there can be a hundred, for others only two to three.