Mention the word ‘chile’ and most people think New World – Mexico definitely, Texas and New Mexico probably. Not many know that in a tiny outpost of the Old World, in a corner of the Pays Basque tucked away near the Spanish border in southwest France, a small red chile, now known as Piment d’Espelette, has been firmly established for over four centuries.

How did a little red chile come to pack such a punch in the Basque country? Monsieur Salaberry, a Piment d’Espelette processor whose shop, Bipia, in Hasparren doubles up as a museum, explains that it was down to one of those intrepid 16th-century Basque navigators who used Bayonne as their base. 

Bottled Piments d'Espelette on sale in Monsieur Salaberry's shop-museum

On return from their fabulous voyages they brought treasured plants from the New World: chocolate (for which Bayonne became celebrated), corn (which would feed the ducks and pigs for the hams and foie gras that are the pride of southwest France) and members of the capsicum family, sweet and hot. Amongst the latter there was a small, medium-hot chile pepper. It took root in the favourable climate and soil of the Nive valley and proceeded to carve out a niche for itself in the local gastronomy. 

Used initially for medicinal purposes, the piment basquais (as it was originally known) steadily gained the upper hand in the kitchen and quickly supplanted the much pricier pepper. ‘In the Pays Basque, we have always used our piment in place of pepper’, observes Hélène Sarsa, our guide at the Accoceberry plant on the edge of the village. 

The annual life cycle of the Piment d’Espelette begins around the feast of St Joseph, March 19th, when the seeds are sown under cover. With a little gentle heat the plants soon grow to a few centimetres high. Next they are pricked out, potted on and left to grow under cover till they reach about 50cm in height. 

Towards the end of May when the soil has warmed up and all danger of a late frost is past, they are planted out in serried ranks, their feet shaded and protected from weeds by a mulch of black plastic. ‘Chiles like to have their feet in the wet and their heads in the warm’, says Monsieur Salaberry.

Harvesting starts during August and continues till the first frosts (around mid-October) sound the death knell of these feisty little annual plants. The chiles are harvested in succession: not all the fruits on each bush reach the requisite state of beautiful red ripeness at the same time – luckily for the producers, who thus have a necessary period of grace to deal with the current crop between successive sweeps. 

The ripe red fruits are sorted, cleaned and painstakingly threaded onto fine string and hung up to dry. Traditionally the chiles were suspended on the east façade of the white painted houses. Sheltered on this side, explains Monsieur Salaberry, they were safe from the wet weather from the west, the cold from the north, or the fearsome warm south wind that blows up through the valley in autumn. 

Though many Piments d’Espelette nowadays are dried under cover, you will still find some strung up outside the houses for show - the best time for Espelette-spotting is mid-September, when the new piments have just gone up, their beautiful brick-red colour blending harmoniously with the classic red shutters and window frames that distinguish Basque houses. 

Once air-dried, the chiles are sorted again, de-stalked and spread out on wicker or metal trays. In the last step, the drying process is completed in special fan-assisted ovens at 45-55oC for up to 2 days, with a final brief blast at 70oC. This gives the chiles their characteristic, faintly toasted aroma. Now all that remains is for them to be finely ground, seeds and all, and put up in pots ready for sale.

The end product ranges in colour from bright brick-red to orange. The depth of colour depends on whether the peppers were harvested early or late in the season explains Laurence Lastiri, a small-scale producer in Itxassou whose piment won a gold medal in the prestigious Concours Agricole held in Paris each spring. (Not bad for a native of Brittany who only started growing chiles 7 years ago as a sideline when her children had flown the nest.) Laurence can be found every Wednesday morning in the market in Espelette, chatting to customers and giving tips on how to use her prize-winning spice.

The finished spice has a lovely toasty, sweetish, peppery nose. To taste, it falls into the ‘warm-glow’ rather than the ‘blast-your-sinuses-apart’ category - Espelette ranks fourth alongside the likes of chile poblano on the official Scoville heat scale that grades chiles from 1-10 (1 being the mildest and 10 the hottest). 

Since Piment d’Espelette was promoted to Appellation d’Origine Controlee (AOC) status in 1999, demand has just about been matched by carefully controlled but steadily increasing supply – in 1997, pre-AOC, 30 producers planted some 200,000 plants on 8 hectares; by 2001 this had increased to 58 small-scale producers (plus the 2 processors above) with 530,000 plants on 28 hectares. 

How heartening - for once - to find a long-treasured, small-scale regional product that is going from strength to strength, rather than figuring on the endangered list.

Piment d’Espelette producers:

• Accoceberry Charcutier, Traiteur & Conserveur, 64250 Espelette, Tel +33 (0)5 59 93 86 49, Fax +33 (0)5 59 93 90 87, email: infos@accoceberry.fr; www.accoceberry.fr
• BiPiA, route d’Halsou, quartier Errepira, 64880 Laressore, Tel. +33 (0)5 59 93 21 86, Fax +33 (0)5 59 93 21 35, email: contact@bipia.com; www.bipia.com
• Mme Laurence Lastiri, Maison Pinpirina, 64250 Itxassou, Tel/Fax +33 (0)5 59 29 78 82, email: lololebian@aol.com