Family : Solanaceae
English: pepper fruit, bell pepper
French: Piment rouge, pili pili
Amharic: berbere, kariya

A little botany
In Ethiopia, the word berbere designates the entire plant, the fresh or dried fruit of the cultivated species Capsicum annuum. The term is also used its dry fruit powder, as well as for a complex, highly popular, condiment in which it is an essential component.
There are very many "bell-pepper" cultivars, with a great diversity of characteristics. The plant is generally green, smooth, and may look like a herb or a rather woody shrub. It can grow up to 1 metre high and even take the form of a liana. In the axils of its broad leaves, arise peduncles with milky white star-shaped flowers. Its fruits have various sizes and colours: initially green, they become red at maturity and can be more or less washed with black or purple hues. They are usually wide rather than long, sometimes globular and never have pointed tips.

A little history
The historical, archaeological and genetic evidence of the South-American origin of all the pimentos cultivated in world is indisputable. The word berbere, is the most widespread in Ethiopia. It actually comes from a Nahuatl (Aztec) term from which also derived chile, chili, pili pili, etc.
The American Indian (probably Mexican) populations were indeed the first to domesticate the plant. It was disseminated throughout the world and particularly in Africa via the Portuguese and the Arabs. It was adopted everywhere and has become so much a part of people's daily lives that they can hardly believe it originated from a foreign land! Capsicum annuum's success is due to the fact that it is very rustic and easy to grow anywhere. Thus, in food preparations, hot chiles frequently replaced milder peppers: the latter, except in the areas of production, were often reserved for rich people who could pay to import them from remote countries.

A mandatory spice and condiment
Berbere plays a key and almost mandatory role in Ethiopian daily cooking – whether used alone or as a base for composite preparations.
The green fruits (karya) are consumed raw in salad seasonings or filled with shallot paste and served to spice up fasting dishes.
Pure berbere powder is an essential ingredient in all stew sauces (wât), to which it lends a red colour. It is incorporated when cooking various pastes (dekous and dilih) or diluted in a little brandy with awase – to accompany raw and grilled meats.
But the most sophisticated preparation, the Ethiopian family's best choice, is a powdery, subtle and tasty mixture, which is not as hot as pure powder. It is also called berbere.
Each family has its own particular recipe. It establishes the reputation of the house and is transmitted, generation after generation, by mothers and grandmothers. Each cook is proud of her special know-how and of her secret list of ingredients.
To make a good berbere you first need good products. Well-advised housewives are obviously aware of the reputation and qualities of the various red pimentos sold in local markets. They must be perfumed but not too hot; their colour should be dark, deep and steady. A good dry berbere's skin is bright, opaque and tough; once ground, its flesh will yield a thick powder – and this powder takes on an intense red colour after cooking.
The most appreciated provenances are probably the large dark red peppers from the Butajira region called mareko, from the name of a Gurage clan that produces them. But the berbere from Alaba (cultivated in the regions of Kulito and Boshana) are also very popular. In the Harrar region, Gursum and Badeysa specialities enjoy an excellent reputation. In Addis, Goyam peppers also have their adepts.
Each provenance has its own personality, its specificities, and qualities. Intensive agro-business productions with their standardised processes never achieve such excellence, which is due to the farmers' know-how in terms of selecting varieties, gathering and drying, and to the unique soils and environments where peppers grow next to many other plants, trees and shrubs.
To make a good berbere, you also need a good recipe. Each house has its own. First, the ingredients: to the bell peppers you add salt, garlic (nech shinkurt), black cumin (turkurt azmud), ajwan (nech azmud), basil (baso bela), dried rue fruits (ten adam), kororima, ginger. Some cooks add canella, fenugreek, curcuma, rosemary, long pepper (timiz) etc. Here again, a careful choice of the provenances will make the difference between a good and a mediocre berbere condiment. One of the best we ever tasted was a mixture of 17 kg of mareko, 10 kg of garlic, 4 kg of kororima and a half-kilo of each of the following spices: tukur azmud, nech azmud, rue, ginger, basil.
The preparation is a long and meticulous process. The dry peppers are wiped, blanched, seeded (but not completely), grossly crushed, and mixed with other spices. The mixture is left to homogenise and to dry slowly in the sunshine. Salt is roasted on a fire before added. The preparation is then carried to the mill, where it is finely ground and passed several times through a sieve. The result is a fine, homogeneous powder with a beautiful rust colour. Preserved in a tightly closed recipient, it will retain its full savour.
Industrial manufacturers also make berbere paste but few of these manage to achieve the quality levels of family or artisan productions.

By Bernard Roussel, Professor at the Museum d'Histoire Naturelle de Paris