Biquinho White:

Biquinho White from the Garden of Sarah Splain

The Little Beak Pepper That Could

The Biquinho White is one of those peppers that remind us heat is not the whole story.

Hearing the name Capsicum chinense makes you think of habaneros, Scotch bonnets, ghost peppers, and other peppers that punish the careless. The Biquinho White belongs to the same species, but it is a very different genotype. This pepper offers a fruit, perfume, and aromatics of the chinense peppers without the violence. It is sweet, bright, citrusy, and mild enough to eat by the handful.

The name Biquinho comes from the Portuguese word meaning “little beak.” These peppers are rounded and tapered to a point. In Brazil, Biquinho peppers are also known as Chupetinho. They are usually seen in red or yellow, but the white form is a newer and less common variant.

Around 2018, this new variant began making its rounds among pepper growers. It ripens from green to pearl white, sometimes leaning toward a pale yellow-white. It does express the usual warning sign of a hot pepper.

These plants can grow a little over three feet tall, making them manageable for a garden, greenhouse, or serious container planting. Like other Biquinho types, the fruit is small and abundant. The value of this pepper lies not in its heat, but in the balance it brings to food.

The flavor is what earns the Biquinho White its place in my dishes. It is sweet, with citrus tones and the familiar tropical character of Capsicum chinense. There is very little heat, so it makes this pepper useful in ways hotter peppers are not. You can use it raw, pickled, fermented, scattered over fish, folded into salads, chopped into relish, or served with cheese and charcuterie. It gives dishes the suggestion of chile without turning the meal into a contest.

It works well as a simple vinegar pickle with salt, sugar, garlic, and a little citrus peel. It is also at home with grilled shrimp, fresh goat cheese, and roasted pork. It makes an excellent pepper for a mild fermented sauce, where the goal is brightness rather than pain.

The modern pepper market often worships heat, with high Scoville numbers and names that sound like they escaped from a George R. R. Martin novel. But the Biquinho points back toward other intended uses of chiles: pleasure, preservation, acidity, fruit, aromatics, and the small, sharp note that wakes up food.

The Biquinho White is not valued for being hot. It is valued because it is useful.

The seeds I am using come from the pepper gardens of Jes Christiansen of Denmark and Sven Martens in Germany.

As a food anthropologist, I find it a reminder that the chile is not one thing. It is medicine, a weapon, a fruit, a seasoning, an ornament, a preservation tool, and a story.

The Biquinho White tells this quieter part of the pepper's story.