from Wikipedia
Like all Capsicum, the habanero pepper originated in Meso- or South America, most likely the Amazon basin or nearby coastal regions. Upon its "discovery" by Europeans, it was rapidly disseminated around the world, to the point that 18th-century taxonomists mistook China for its place of origin and called it "capsicum chinense"—the Chinese pepper.<1><2><3>
Today, the crop is most widely cultivated in the Yucatan peninsula of Mexico. Other modern producers include Belize, Costa Rica, and some U.S. states including Texas, Idaho, and California.
http://www.fiery-foods.com/dave/profile_hab.htmlPepper Profile: Habanero
by Dave DeWitt
What's In a Name?
Habaneros and their kin are varieties of Capsicum chinense, which is one of the five domesticated species of peppers. As is true with the rest of the peppers, the nomenclature of the chinense species is highly confusing. There are three major difficulties: a misnamed species, the misuse of the word "habanero," and a confusing number of common names.
The species was misnamed Capsicum chinense in 1776 by Nikolaus von Jacquin, a Dutch physician who collected plants in the Caribbean for Emperor Francis I from 1754 to 1759. Jacquin, who first described the species as "chinense" in his work, Hortus botanicus vindobonensis, wrote, mysteriously, "I have taken the plant's name from its homeland," which was dead wrong. We are now stuck with a totally inaccurate species name of a supposedly Chinese pepper that's not from China but from the Caribbean and South America.
The second nomenclature problem is with the word habanero (sometimes erroneously spelled habañero), when it is used in English to represent the entire chinense species. That appellation is a misnomer because there are dozens--if not hundreds--of pod types within the species, and the Spanish name habanero technically refers to a specific pod type from the Yucatán Peninsula. But because consumers in the United States were familiar with the Mexican peppers, habanero became the buzz word for the species--even to the point where writers were calling the Scotch bonnet a type of "habanero." Wrong. The Scotch bonnet and habanero are different pod types of the same species. Despite all this logic, we admit that the word habanero has come into common usage as the generic term for the species--and that is why we use it in that manner. The third nomenclature problem is a plethora of common names ranging from Scotch bonnet to bonney pepper to bonda man Jacques to Congo pepper.
But what about the Cuban connection? Isn't that the origin of habanero, meaning "from Havana"? Pepper experts have long debated the possible Cuban origin for the habaneros that are grown today in the Yucatán Peninsula of Mexico and Belize. Mexican horticulturists Cancino Laborde and P. Pozo Compodonico stated that the habanero is the only pepper in Yucatán without a Mayan name, which would indicate that it was imported. We have grown out seeds from Cuban immigrants which turned into the familiar orange habaneros, another indication of their Cuban origin.
Origins
The Amazon basin was the center of origin for the chinense species, but the story of the spread of the wild varieties and their eventual domestication is still not clear. However, the oldest known chinense specimen ever found was a single intact pod (probably a wild form) that was discovered in Preceramic levels (6,500 B.C.) in Guitarrero Cave in coastal Peru.
Since both wild and domesticated forms of the Brazilian chinense exist today, it follows that the species was domesticated much in the same manner as the annuum species was in Mexico. First, it was a tolerated weed with erect fruits. Then, as early farmers planted the seeds and tended the plants, there was a gradual evolution by human selection to larger, more pendant pods.
The domestication of the chinense species occurred around 2000 B.C., and, according to ethnobotanist Barbara Pickersgill, "it was probably connected with the development of agriculture in tropical forests. It seems reasonable to assume that C. chinense was domesticated east of the Andes by these tropical forest agriculturists, who were probably responsible for the domestication of manioc." She added, wryly: "As a condiment, the chile pepper probably formed a welcome addition to any diet consisting largely of manioc starch." By about 1000 B.C., domesticated chinense varieties had spread to the Pacific coast of Peru.
The cultivation of the chinense species produced many pod types and varieties. Bernabe Cobo, a naturalist who traveled throughout South America during the early seventeenth century, probably was the first European to study the chinense species. He estimated that there were at least forty different pod types of the chiles, "some as large as limes or large plums; others, as small as pine nuts or even grains of wheat, and between the two extremes are many different sizes. No less variety is found in color...and the same difference is found in form and shape."
Chinense was and still is the most important cultivated pepper species east of the Andes in South America. Barbara Pickersgill notes that the fruit characteristics of the species are more variable around the mouth of the Amazon than further west because of human selection of the pods.
The dispersion of domesticated chinense types into the Caribbean and Central America occurred in two different directions. Some chinense varieties spread into the Isthmus from Colombia and eventually became common in Panama and Costa Rica. But apparently their spread north was halted before they reached the Yucatán Peninsula. Meanwhile, during their great migrations, the ancestors of the Arawaks and Caribs transferred the chinense from the Amazon Basin through Venezuela and into the Caribbean, where pod types developed on nearly every island. Pickersgill believes that the habanero was "a historic introduction from the West Indies" into Yucatán, completing the chinense's island-hopping encirclement of the Caribbean Sea.
A Hot History
When Columbus first explored the Caribbean islands in 1492, there's a good chance that the first chile pepper he encountered was a Scotch bonnet or its cousin. After all, long before Columbus arrived, the chinense had spread throughout the islands. So it would not be surprising to learn that Columbus misnamed the pod pimiento (pepper) right after biting into a chinense.
According to Jean Andrews, "After 1493, peppers from the West Indies were available to the Portuguese for transport to their western African colonies." Brazilian peppers were available by 1508, when Portugal colonized Brazil. After sugar cane was introduced into Brazil in 1532, there was a great need for slave labor. Considerable trade sprang up between Portuguese colonies in Angola and Mozambique and across the Atlantic in Pernambuco, Brazil. It is believed that this trade introduced New World peppers into Africa, especially the chinense and frutescens species.
An early naturalist, Francisco Ximnez, wrote in his natural history of Guatemala in 1722 that he had heard of a pepper from Havana that was so strong that a single pod would make "a bull unable to eat." Some people theorize that the unnamed pod was the legendary early habanero.
Legend and Lore
A well known West Indies folk tale describes a Creole woman who loved the fragrant island pods so much that she decided to make a soup out of them. She reasoned that since the Scotch bonnets were so good in other foods, a soup made just of them would be heavenly. But after her children tasted the broth, it was so blisteringly hot that they ran to the river to cool their mouths. Unfortunately, they drank so much water that they drowned--heavenly, indeed! The moral of the story is to be careful with Scotch bonnets and their relatives, which is why many sauce companies combine them with vegetables or fruits to dilute the heat. And water, of course, is hardly the best cool-down; dairy products are.
A Caribbean natural pepper remedy supposedly will spice up your love life! In Guadeloupe, where chinense is called le derriere de Madame Jacques, that pepper is combined with crushed peanuts, cinnamon sticks, nutmeg, vanilla beans packed in brandy, and an island liqueur called Creme de Banana to make an aphrodisiac. We assume it's taken internally.
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