I'm glad you liked the Rezha. They really are awesome on the grill, huh? They also freeze well without blanching. I froze them whole, and threw them on the grill in the wintertime. I was really bummed when I ran out. I also pickled some, and they were OK, but I have other peppers that pickle better. The skin doesn't really bother me. If you grill them, it softens up just fine.
I didn't purposely plant any this year because I was going to grow out other pepper seeds I gathered in Macedonia (though I was kind of remorseful about my decision), and luckily, one Rezha seed accidentally got mixed in with the Sweet Babura, so I do have one plant this year. Coincidentally, it was also the first pepper this year out of over a dozen varieties and 100 plants to flower, and start producing fruit. They do extremely well here in Southern Colorado.

Here is a link that might be useful: Rezha

Hi all,

Figured i would plant this here since I have three dried red Rehza peppers waiting to have their seeds harvested to plant next year.

I also have another dried red pepper that hails from the same region as the Rehza, i don't know the name but they are between 5-6" long when dried, medium walled and often dried on a string. The locals cook the dried product into recipes or grind them into a chili powder. It's heat index varies from mild to hot but most of them seem mildly/pungent spicy with a hint of sweet. I like the way the fresh product tastes when roasted over charcoal, it keeps the pungent/sweet/spicey combo. Don't think i've ever had a roasted pepper so "complicated" in taste. I have hundreds of these seeds.

Can't wait to get it all in the ground next year and thank you for sharing your experiences Roper2008 + euarto.

sjetski,

If you are interested in peppers from that region, I have several varieties, like Rezha, that I gathered from villages in Eastern Macedonia while I was in the Peace Corps. I'd love to see a picture of the pepper you're describing. If I don't have it, perhaps we could trade.
I will be posting photos of a couple different varieties of Macedonian peppers that are coming ripe soon.

Hello euarto, thanks for the reply.

Going to try my hardest to find a pic, but in all honesty you likely seen them drying by the thousands while you were there.

Come to think of it, some of them "may" be chervena chuska, but all of them cannot be since there is a pungent spicy odor to them as a group (they are all in one big bag). I noticed some groupings have the entire stem caps cut off, perhaps to aid in drying (thicker walled chushkas perhaps?) and some groupings have the stems intact and are sewn together. If i were to send you seeds then i would pick from several different groups and keep them separated and labeled for you, perhaps even send you entire dried peppers so you can make your own judgement. I supposed i could spare a dozen or so Rehza seeds if you like, you can always grow and compare to your own product ... they are 4 inches long and medium red in color.

I would be interested in a trade by the way, specifically for pepper seed from that region. I have updated and activated my email account settings btw, and can now receive emails via the forum.

I will try to hunt down some online pics to post for you tonight. Worst case scenario if i can't find any then maybe i'll take pictures of the dried product and post them here for you to inspect. Keep an eye out for updates ;)

There's a good chance i've found the type i have. The picture not only looks close, but the description seems to match as well. There's no way for me to know for sure however.

Look for "Earl's Macedonian #4" right here: http://sev.lternet.edu/~jnekola/Heirloom/PeppersDF.htm

A few days ago I planted about 40 seeds sourced from four of these peppers, with the recent hot weather i imagine they'll sprout pretty soon. In hindsight i may have planted some of them too deep so it would be hard for me to figure out how many of them were genuinely viable. I'd expect them to reach at least 5 or 6 inches in height before the season ends. Maybe i should plant a second batch, but pay closer attention to planting depth this time around. Prior to planting I always soak seeds in an antifungal bath then followed up with filtered water, for a good 5 or 6 hours or so.

Here is a link that might be useful: Earl's Macedonian # 4

sjetski, I am growing an unnamed pepper that looks similar. I will post pics soon. Did you get your rezha seed from Macedonia, or did you get it here in the US? Do they have heavy striations like this?

euarto, the Rehza peppers i have are about 75-80% as striated as the example in your pic, with more red visible skin visible between the striations. The few i have seem to be smaller ~ 4" perhaps. All of my aforementioned peppers are direct from macedonia and harvested from villages immediately north of Bitola in 2009.

I want to take pictures and post them but i cannot find my digital camera for the life of me. But when and if i do find it i'll take pictures of both and post them here.

Here is a link that might be useful: Bitola and surounding villages, satellite shot

If anyone has seeds of this variety for trade, please PM me. I'm very interested. :) I love the striations.

Chris

sjetski,

There is a possibility that they are not the same pepper. 4 inches sounds rather small. Did they call those peppers Rezha in Bitola, or something else? I am growing another unknown striated pepper this year from Macedonia of similar size, with slightly less striation than Rezha, and it has no heat at all, and seems to have thinner flesh. Here's a pic.

How much heat do yours have?
My rezha have a slow creeping intense burn that I'm not quite sure how to measure. I'm curious to hear what roper2008 thinks about the heat level, as grown in her climate, since she grew hers from seed I sent her.

Chris, I'd be happy to trade with you.

I had one a few days ago. I roast them and get as much of the skin
off as I can, and also the seeds and membrane out. The last one
was very, very hot. I must have missed the membrane. I had to
drink milk. I'm guessing it's as hot as a Jalapeno.

euarto, i am told by my father that the heat varies but for the most part they are medium heat (by his standards). He also tells me that the greater Bitola area refers to them as "vezeni" which can be translated as "needle sewn", he has never heard of them referred as "rezha" nor does he know that as a word (he comes from a family of farmers that lived near Bitola). My pops also claims that this current batch is smaller and that he recalls them as averaging an inch or two bigger, perhaps they shrink that much when dried? I am also being told that my variety has somewhat thinner flesh, barely medium walled he describes it. He says you can get the occasional one that packs NO heat so maybe the one you tried is a dud.

The few that we have are almost as striated as your green rezha, but i did notice one was striated a lot less, but still more striated than the red one in your last pic. The striations patterns are spread about haphazardly and not very uniform.

I wonder if the reds we have are some sort of hybridized variety (?) since they have thinner walls and less striation. Maybe a cross between feferoni and rezha if that's even possible?

I think a couple of my Earl #4's may have sprouted, they may just be weeds so i need a few more days at least to get a more positive ID.

Still can't find my digital camera btw...

Oh, just to clarify one of my statements above, i'm not sure if my mystery peppers are genuinely Earl #4's, but there seems to be a decent chance they are.

And come to think of it, that last red rezha you posted almost looks like it's crossed with an "Earl #4", again if such hybrid crosses are even possible. I'm not sure how pepper hybrids manifest themselves...

Rezha (Ñежа) is the common name given to them in the 2 eastern villages where I gathered these that were heavily striated and very hot. From what I am gathering, vezeni is the general name for this type of pepper across Macedonia. Due to the isolation of many villages, I would not be surprised if there weren't substantial pockets of variation in heat, size, flavor, color or striation. I'm of the opinion it's better to accidentally have 3 different names for the same exact pepper than to accidentally give the same name to 3 distinctly different peppers. The Macedonians are very loose with names, and the agricultural institutes in that region aren't very helpful. I had Macedonian friends try to help in getting more information about this pepper, and even people within the the agricultural industry there either didn't know or refused to help. These peppers are a part of Macedonian heritage, grown for generations, yet as far as I know all of it has been from gathering open pollinated seed in home gardens. I never saw them for sale at the pazar like other peppers, yet many households in the villages had them, usually grown by old people. The sparkle in the eye of the elderly people who served those peppers to me when I went na gosti is something I'll never forget. There's something deeply Macedonian about them, something old. They are an heirloom in the truest sense of the word.
I'd be curious to grow out some of your seed alongside mine and compare heat and striation. Mine were gathered in the villages in the east around Strumica and Radovis.
Perhaps it is the Southern Colorado climate (known for bringing the heat out of chiles), but grown here they are way hotter than any jalapenos. I'd put them on par with a really hot serrano.

Ahh, looks like you caught the general vibe of the place while you were there, if that's the case it look's like i'll have to spare an entire rehza for someone who will appreciate it so ;), but sorry to everyone else who may want some because i have so few this year.

I dug up a 4 of my possible Earl #4 seeds and all 4 of them had sprouted roots, it seems that they're pretty viable. I replanted exactly twenty more seeds under more optimal conditions, they'll become my study group.

Oh yea, i completely forgot, an aunt of mine planted a bunch of mystery pepper seeds she brought in from macedonia, i'll have a bunch of those seeds for 2011 as well. Hopefully their some rarer type we don't have. Come to think of it she gave "a bunch" of those seedlings to my dad a month or two ago, got to head over there to see how they're doing.

I really got to find that darn digital camera of mine...

Look for my email within the next day or so euarto.

I couldn't really say how hot mine were. I cannot eat them without taking
the membrane out. Even when I do that the pepper is still hot, but a hot
that I can handle. What I like most about it, is that it is also very sweet. My
sister likes it too. She didn't roast them. She steams it in microwave.
I think it takes best on barbecue grill because it get a sweet hot smokey
flavor.
I'm going to plant the rest of the seeds you gave me next year. I'll bag
some blossoms , so their is no cross pollination. Maybe can share seeds
with other members, but there doesn't seem to be much interest. Might
be the skin texture that throws people off.

roper2008,

I sent several other people seeds last fall. As far as I know, you're the only person who planted them this year. I'd be curious to hear from the other people who grew them this year whether or not they liked them.