Nazgûl’s Breakfast

strictly for wraiths

I grew Nazgûl’s Breakfast because I liked the name and thought the photographs looked extraordinary. By the end of the summer, I was completely obsessed with it. The stems are purple, the leaves are green and purple, and the pods change colour so dramatically that the plant never looks quite the same from one week to the next.

I have grown superhots with impressive fruit before, but this one is beautiful even when you aren’t looking at the chillies. It has become the plant I take people over to see when they visit the greenhouse.

Nazgûl’s Breakfast was developed by Canadian chilli breeder Francis Gagnon. That was another reason I wanted to try it: I don’t think I had ever grown a Canadian-bred chilli before. It is a modern Capsicum chinense hybrid, though I haven’t found a confirmed account of which varieties went into it.

I have spent quite a lot of time examining the pods and wondering, but their shape and colour cannot settle the question. One seed supplier warns that the strain may not be fully stable, so plants grown from seed could differ. I can only tell you what mine has done—and it has given me plenty to talk about.

My youngest pods are so dark they can look almost brown-black. They are pointed and crumpled, with ridges and folds that give each one a slightly different shape. As they ripen, warmer colours come through the purple before the oldest fruit turns a vivid red. On one branch I can see dark new pods at the top, fruit partway through that change below them, and ripe chillies further down.

Not everyone’s harvest finishes like mine: some growers describe their ripe pods as dark brown or mocha. Between that and the warning about variation in this hybrid, I would go by the fruit on my own plant rather than wait for it to match somebody else’s photograph.

This has not been a small, tidy plant in my greenhouse. I potted it on from a plug in mid-February, and it took a while to grow into itself. Then the branches got long, the pods kept coming, and I had to support several stems as the crop began to weigh them down. I’m apparently not alone: one Canadian grower reports that Nazgûl’s Breakfast was the tallest pepper plant they grew that season.

Mine still has ripe fruit, purple fruit and new pods developing at the same time. It has been a slow one to reach its full glory, but I haven’t minded. Next year I’ll give it room from the start and have the supports ready.

What surprised me was the flavour. It started with the fruitiness I expect from a chinense chilli, but that passed quite quickly. Underneath was something much sharper and fresher, almost like a green chilli. Then the heat settled in and stayed. Another grower describes earthy notes and a hint of sweetness in their pods, which makes me even more interested to taste mine in a finished sauce.

I’m thinking of something to have with burgers or barbecue, where that sharp edge might work well with rich food. I also found a grower fermenting a harvest of Nazgûl’s Breakfast for sauce. That could be another experiment if my plant gives me enough pods—though I’ll taste the first batch before committing the whole crop.