Harissa

Harissa is a Tunisian hot chili pepper paste that originated on the Cape Bon Peninsula, with the town of Nabeul as its main production center, made from roasted red peppers and Baklouti peppers with garlic paste, caraway seeds, coriander seeds, cumin and olive oil; the peppers traditionally used score about 4,000 to 5,000 on the Scoville scale, a moderate heat level. Tunisia is the largest exporter of prepared harissa, and UNESCO added it to Tunisia's Intangible Cultural Heritage list on December 1, 2022; chili peppers reached Tunisia through the Columbian exchange, likely during the Spanish occupation of 1535 to 1574, and the name comes from an Arabic root meaning to pound or to break into pieces, describing how it is traditionally made. In 2006 Tunisia produced about 22,000 tonnes of harissa from roughly 40,000 tonnes of peppers.