What’s the difference between red pepper and black pepper?
Red peppers, often called chiles or chilli peppers, are the fruits of small shrubs native to South America. They belong to the botanical genus Capsicum. Black peppercorns are dried berries that grow on vines. They’re native to southwest India and belong to the genus Piper. They are completely unrelated plants from opposite sides of the globe. How did they wind up with the same name?
Blame it on Spanish explorers. When they first tasted chilli (the Nahuatl word for capsicums), they associated the fiery pungency with the familiar piquancy of black pepper. Rather than use the local name or create an entirely new name, they called capsicums by their word for black pepper—pimiento.
When the name got translated into English, it stuck.
Unlike black pepper, which grows only in the tropics, red pepper can grow in temperate climates. That has made it one of the most widely used spices in cuisines around the world, from Mexico to Tunisia, Vietnam to Hungary.