Pepper of Ezpeleta Martinon

Philippe Martinon is a producer-transformer of Ezpeleta’s Denomination of Origin pepper, and he belongs to a family tradition of several generations of farmers.

It has its farm 2 km away from the country house Xoko Ona, where also he lives with his family.

Philippe Martinon produces pepper cords as well as pepper powder and salt of Ezpeleta pepper.

The Espelette pepper is an agricultural product grown in the french Basque Country, in the Department of the Pyrenees Atlantiques. The headquarters of the Denomination of Origin is located in the village of Espelette.

This variety of pepper was brought from the Antilles in the sixteenth century by the navigator Juan Sebastian Elkano, native of the town of Getaria of the spanish Basque Country. The plant was first used in medicine, and was soon used as a substitute for black pepper, to season and preserve the meats.

In 1650, it began to grow the peppers in Espelette. The seeds were selected by the farmers, and over the years the rustic variety Gorria was originated in order to produce “Espelette pepper”.

On the simplified Scoville scale, the Espelette pepper has a value of 4 and is not stronger than pepper. Its fragrance develops by being dried for a long time in the sun. It has been used for five centuries as a substitute for black pepper in the basque cuisine.