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Chili pepper (also known as, or spelled, chilli pepper, chilli, chillie, chili, and chile) is the...

Chili pepper (also known as, or spelled, chilli pepper, chilli, chillie, chili, and chile) is the fruit of the plants from the genus Capsicum, members of the nightshade family, Solanaceae. (Although a fruit in a scientific sense, the peppers are ordinarily thought of as vegetables or spices for culinary purposes.) Botanically speaking, the fruit of capsicums are berries. Depending on flavor intensity and fleshiness, their culinary use varies from use as a vegetable (e.g., bell pepper) to use as a spice (e.g., cayenne pepper). It is the fruit that is harvested. Chili peppers originated in the Americas; and their cultivars are now grown around the world, because they are widely used as food and as medicine. Chili peppers have been a part of the human diet in the Americas since at least 7500 BC. There is archaeological evidence at sites located in southwestern Ecuador that chili peppers were domesticated more than 6000 years ago, and is one of the first cultivated crops in the Americas that is self-pollinating. Chili peppers were domesticated at least in different parts of South and Central America. Christopher Columbus was one of the first Europeans to encounter them (in the