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Paprika - Dictionary Definition and Overview |
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Paprika : \Pa"pri*ka\, n. Also Paprica \Pa"pri*ca\ [Hung. paprika
Turkish pepper; prob. through G.]
The dried ripened fruit of Capsicum annuum or various other
species of pepper; also, the mildly pungent condiment
prepared from it.
Based on Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary
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Paprika : Paprika: A spicy seasoning ground from a variety of sweet red pepper (Capsicum annuum), the original source of vitamin C , isolated by the Hungarian scientist Albert Szent-Gyorgyi
(1893-1986).
The story goes that Szent-Gyorgyi did not like paprika and so took his plate of paprika pods into his laboratory, not wanting to offend his wife. As he looked at the mound of peppers, he realized
that he had never tested the pepper for its compounds. The results surprised him. He found that a paprika pepper contained 5-6 times more vitamin C than an orange or lemon. For the next few weeks he
had turned his place into a paprika-mashing center, involving his assistants and his entire family. He extracted and filled flask after flask, each of 50-liter capacity. In one week alone, he managed
to extract half a kilogram of pure vitamin C, an unthinkable quantity at the time.
Szent-Gyorgyi named it scurvy ). In 1937 Szent-Gyorgyi received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, in part for his isolation of vitamin C from paprika.
Based on Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)
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