Red Pepper Jelly - Capsicum = Very Spicy

[jfood]

Jfood purchased a jar of Red Pepper Jelly with pictures of nice red bell peppers on the label. Mrs jfood loves the Ina Garten variety at home with a little soft cheese on a craacker and it is not available at MIL's so he purchased another variety.

Ingredients include - "cane sugar, red bell peppers, apple cider vinegar, pectin, citric acid, dehydrated onions and capsicum". Seemed pretty inocuous to jfood. Wrong

jfood takes out some crackers, a little soft cheese, a little red pepper and onto the tongue. *&&^*&*%$@...OMG what was that....mouth tingling....tongue burning....sweat from the forehead....spit into napkin!!!! Happy Hanukkah to the roof of the mouth!!!

Looking up capsicum on-line notes that it does range from sweet to spicy peppers, so jfood at least learned something from this unpleasant experience.

So when a list of ingredients include "capsicum" be aware that the manufacturer may be "hiding the banana pepper" in this word. For those of you who like spice, this will be fantastic, for those of us on the other end of the spectrum...head's up.

Ciao

[bulavinaka]

We have pepper jelly every year with our Scotch Eggs around Christmas - just the right amount of kick to add another dimension to those decadent orbs of savory richness. Maybe we have a higher tolerance to heat, but we've never found the jelly to be so bad. But hey - we can't eat Southeast Asian food with out a good dosing of sambal either...

[JoanN]

Capsicum is the genus and therefore includes all peppers, both hot and sweet. But the word is also used anecdotally, although it is technically incorrect, to refer specifically to cayenne pepper. I’m sure that was what the label was trying to tell you since it mentions both “red bell peppers” and “capsicum,” which is actually redundant. In my experience, probably because those I’ve had have usually been homemade, red pepper jelly is quite picante.

I’m with Linda VH. Send it my way.

[paulj]

In UK use, capsicum is the mild 'bell pepper'.

As an ingredient in an American product it could mean a hot pepper extract, the stuff that is used in medicinal creams, and super-hot sauces (e.g. Dave's Insanity).

I'm guessing that in this jelly, the mild pepper provides the color and juice, and a very small amount of capsium (extract) has been added to provide the kick. But for jfood's taste that could still have been too much.

[jeanmarieok]

That's crazy. I would have thought the pepper jelly would have been sweet, not hot. Kind of mis-labeling, isn't it?

[Linda VH]

Love spicy - what is the brand please?

[jfood]

Brasswell's. If you like heat you will probably like.