Rocoto Manzano Pepper

Named for its apple-like shape, manzano means apple in Spanish, this is a Mexican pubescens form grown in the cool highland regions of Oaxaca, Michoacán, and Guerrero, where it's known locally as chile manzano or chile perón. That Mexico has its own pubescens tradition, developed independently from the Andean rocoto culture, is one of the less celebrated facts in pepper history, the same cold-adapted species finding its way into highland agriculture on two separate tracks and arriving at something recognizably similar: thick walls, black seeds, heat that doesn't apologize. The manzano stays fresh in Mexican cooking, going into salsas and vinegar pickles where the juiciness of the fruit matters, and at the Oaxaca city market it sits alongside the long dried chiles looking almost improbably solid, like something that belongs in a fruit basket rather than a chile stall.

Heat: 30,000-100,000 SHU.
Origin: Highland Mexico (Oaxaca, Michoacán, and Guerrero); the Mexican form of C. pubescens , distinct from Andean rocotos.