Green Pepper Basil
Learn how to use green pepper basil in the kitchen and tips to grow it in your garden.
February/March 2004
By Jim Long
 |
Jim Long
|
Ocimum selloi
Hardy to Zone 9
RELATED CONTENT
This savory cornbread is rich and cake-like and full of flavor. Taste your sage to see how strong i...
Madalene Hill grows more than two dozen varieties of basil in Round Top, Texas. Green pepper basil...
Basils are the essence of the summer herb garden and culinary icons with a large and devoted follow...
Basils are the essence of the summer herb garden and culinary icons with a large and devoted follow...
Basils are the essence of the summer herb garden and culinary icons with a large and devoted follow...
More than two dozen varieties of basil grow in
Madalene Hill’s Round Top, Texas patio garden. Among them, one of
the real standouts is green pepper basil, a remarkable old herb
with centuries of use in various cultures. Ocimum selloi is
becoming increasingly popular now in the United States, with a
distinctive flavor that is just as its name implies—a combination
of green pepper and basil. Its deep-green leaves are considerably
longer than those of other basils, making it more closely resemble
a pepper plant. This unusual plant has a milder, more complex
flavor than most of its cousins.
O. selloi was first collected near Chiapas, Mexico, by botanist
Dennis E. Breedlove, curator emeritus of the California Academy of
Sciences. The area is well known for producing an array of
fascinating edible plants, including several varieties of
chilhuacle peppers.
Art Tucker, Ph.D., of Delaware State University, who has done a
preliminary analysis on green pepper basil, reports smelling the
green pepper pyrazines in the plant but says he has not completely
isolated the chemicals. He said, “My nose smells the green pepper
pyrazines so they’re probably there, but I can’t report a level
yet.”
Basil essential oils traditionally have been used to kill or
repel insects, to flavor foods, in fragrances, in folk medicine and
as condiments. In Brazil, O. selloi has been used to treat
stomachaches and as an anti-inflammatory remedy. A 2003 study
conducted at the State University of Ponta Grossa in Brazil found
green pepper basil’s oil to be an effective mosquito repellent that
wasn’t irritating to human skin.
The writings of Berlin, Breedlove and Raven also discuss this
species in their book, Principles of Tzeltal Plant Classification
(Elsevier Science and Technology Books, 1974), under the herb known
as “san mikel wamal” (St. Michael’s herb, also known as green
pepper basil). They report a reference that said the plant was used
for “stomach trouble and baths for those recovering from fevers in
Meso-America.”