Scotch Bonnet Pepper

The scotch bonnet peppers are extremely hot and particularly important in West African and Caribbean cuisine, where they are used in hot sauces, jerk chicken, and many other dishes. Named for its shape, which looks like a tam o’ shanter hat from Scotland.

This variety was selected and grown for our 2021 and 2022 catalogues by Rasheed Hislop and Rosalba Lopez Ramirez at Black Zocalo in California. Rasheed’s father is from Trinidad, and this is an important pepper in their family foodways. Rasheed’s grandmother, Sylvia Foncette-Hislop, “Gran”, taught him how to make pepper sauce in Cascade, Port of Spain, Trinidad, among many other specialities over the years from childhood to adulthood. Rasheed’s last name, “Hislop,”, is also of Scottish origin, as his great-great-grandfather was a Scotsman who travelled with his three brothers to the Caribbean in the 19th century as colonisers seeking their fortune. In this way, recognising the often complex histories/herstories that we in the Afro-Caribbean often overlook to simplify the stories (but lie in the process!).