Spices, capsicum, color

Capsicum - [COLORANTS FORFOOD, DRUGS, COSMETICS AND MEDICALDEVICES] (Vol 6) - [FLAVORS AND SPICES -SPICES] (Vol 11)... 

The American Spice Trade Association (ASTA) (4) accepts spice as any dried plant product used primarily for seasoning purposes. This broad definition was designed so that items labeled only as spice could give adequate protection to proprietary formulas for spice mixtures. However, ASTA recommends that the dehydrated vegetables and the color spices be listed separately by name on all labels. ASTA also has recommended that the capsicums, no matter the species, be delisted as spices and labeled separately. 

Paprika is a very old colorant and spice. It is a deep red, pungent powder prepared from the dried pods of the sweet pepper, Capsicum annum. 

The most important of the spices known for pungency are the chillies, the larger and less pungent variety, Capsicum annum L., the smaller, pungent variety Capsicum frutescens L. and the bird chilli a Capsicum frutescens variety. Apart from color, which is important in the case of paprika, a large variety, pungency is the most important quality attribute of the capsicums used in foods. 

Many varieties of red pepper, derived from plants of the genus Capsicum, are used in different cuisines around the world for their sensory properties of oral chemical "heat", volatile flavor and color. Determination of the degree of heat in a pepper sample has been a difficult problem for both sensory and instrumental analysts of flavor. Furthermore, the literature concerning the sensory physiology and perceptual responses of the "common chemical sense" (as defined later) has lagged behind other areas of study of the chemical senses. The purpose of this paper will be to review recent developments in two areas, the development of a standard method for sensory analysis of ground red pepper heat and the psychophysical characterization of observers responses to oral chemical Irritation induced by spice-derived compounds. 

Moster, J. B., and ITater, A. N. 1952. Color of capsicum spices. I. Measurement of extractable color. Food Technol. 6, 459. 

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