Topic: Paprika and chilli powder

[fried]

I decided to start another thread rather than derail another thread.

I'm interseted in this question because of a conversation I was having with my mother-in-law. She's off back to Turkey for a few months and as usual will be getting us a kilo of Paprika.

I was asking her about what exactly is used to make the Paprika and she was explaining that there are different paprikas ranging from mild to hot, but also with different flavours depending on the usage of the paprika. I'd love to go to see the markets and have a try of some different varieties!

So, I was making some Red curry paste (Thai) using dried chillis, big ones that I asumed were probably 'Kashmiri' chillis. I got the M-i-l to have a taste of one and she said it would make good paprika.

My mother in law doesn't speak English (or French) and my missus was translating from Turkish to French, but as far as she was concerned Paprika was the same as chilli powder.

I checked wikipedia and it says that paprika comes from a species of capsicum of which bell pepper and a lot of normal chilli varieties come from.

I know what I have believed is the difference between the two, but is there really any accepted difference in terms of BIR or traditional cookery?

[Peripatetic Phil]

I know what I have believed is the difference between the two, but is there really any accepted difference in terms of BIR or traditional cookery?

Yes.  You simply cannot replace one by the other, even though "hot paprika" can approach ground chillies in terms of strength.  They have a different flavour and come from different plants.  This, of course, is from an English perspective, taking "paprika" and "chillies" as English words and respecting their normal English (culinary) usage.  By the time you have translated "paprika" and "ground chillies" into Turkish (or into Hungarian, for that matter), they may well be the same thing, or at least on the same continuum :  speaking neither language, I have no way of knowing.

Paprika :
 1. A powdered spice with a deep orange-red colour and a mildly pungent flavour, made from the dried, ground fruits of certain varieties of the sweet pepper (see sense B. 2). Also more fully paprika pepper. Also fig.

 2. The mildly flavoured, usually red fruit of any of several European varieties of the sweet pepper, Capsicum annuum (Longum group); (also) a plant producing such fruit. Also more fully paprika pepper.
1851   Encycl. Americana VI. 476/2   Kitchen vegetables and garden plants of every description, melons,..Turkish pepper (paprika), fruits, [etc.].

Chilli :
 1.
Thesaurus

[chonk]

Paprika = Capsicum = Chili. It's one and the same genus, but different varieties. It's more about the language, than the actual science behind it. Italians call them peperoni, which can add some extra confusion.

[Peripatetic Phil]

Paprika = Capsicum = Chili. It's one and the same genus, but different varieties.

I would argue that the distinction is at one level higher than variety, to wit at the specific level (i.e., species), not at the variety (cultivar) level.  I agree that the genus is the same.

** Phil.

[chonk]

Most of the time, yes, but not always. Habanero, for instance. (No C. annuum, like cayenne pepper or bell pepper, but C. chinense)

[Peripatetic Phil]

Yes, that's at the specific level, not at the cultivar level.   This page is quite informative.
** Phil.

[chonk]

My bad! (:

[Peripatetic Phil]

If you throw "Chilli" and "Paprika" at Google Translate, and ask it to translate the two words (ideally on separate lines) into each of the languages it claims to "know", you get some very interesting results.  In some languages (e.g., Turkish), they are identical; in some, one is clearly a variant of the other; and in some others, they are simply different.  Then if you change the spelling of "Chilli" to "Chili", you get quite different results.  Very interesting ...

** Phil.

[Vindaloo-crazy]

I finally managed to track down some Kashmiri chilli powder in Hobart (a major achievement) which is labeled as paprika.

Bizarre.