Howdy to all y'all. Second post here, still waiting for my WSM to ship.
Never had the Peruvian pepper paste, but have grown some Peruvian peppers, and did business long ago with the Pepper Gal.
I think my favorite baccatum variety came from the Pepper Gal. It's a small pod, ripening from green to red, that's borne upright on the bush. It's much like the wild or near-wild chiltepin or pequin varieties of capsicum annuum (bell, jalapeno, ancho). When the pod is ripe, the calyx loosens its grip, so you just pick the pod by itself -- no stem. That's characteristic of wild peppers -- it makes them easier for birds (and us) to harvest them. The ones I got from Pepper Gal were segregated into round and oblong shapes. Probably F2 seeds from an accidental cross-pollination two generations back. Anyway, they were very prolific, on bushes that were quite large, about 4-5 feet tall and wide. Lots of seeds. Excellent for pepper vinegars, good dried and crushed if you don't mind the seeds. Not bad just to munch on, if you like it hot. Fruity. Also, baccatums have the cutest little spots on the flower petals.
That wasn't the only batch of segregated, F2 or later-generation seeds that I got from Peppergal, and I got one that was way off, but that was wonderful. It was supposed to be some sort of annum, but turned out to be a very nice Bishop's Crown/S. American Skirt Pepper baccatum. Apple-sweet flesh, fairly thick with no heat, but the ribs/placenta were full of fire.
Another Peruvian I've grown and liked is a capsicum chinense (habanero, scotch bonnet). It's a leggier bush than the habs, with oblong, pendulous pods that are thin-walled like a cayenne, about 4-5 inches long and 3/4" wide, dark green ripening to dark brown. It's an excellent pepper for drying and powdering, flaking or storing whole and rehydrating like an ancho. It has a smoky taste that's sort of like a pasilla or ancho, but with some of the fruitiness and only a fraction of the heat of a habanero. It's actually a little hard for my eyes to tell when it's ripe, based on the color, but another good thing about it is that it dries very nicely on the bush, so you can pick the slightly shriveled ones if you want to be sure they are ripe, and then finish drying them. I've never used it fresh. I got it from the USDA/NPGS, and I don't know if it's commercially available anywhere. The NPGS/GRIN accession number is PI315010. I lost my seed stock, and am hoping that the seeds from some dried pods are still viable. Just planted today, actually.
Regarding the Rocotos, they're an entirely different species. Big, black seeds inside little tomato-shaped pods with thick flesh and a fair bit of fire. Hard to germinate, if you put them straight into the seed flat. When you get the seeds, put them into the freezer for a week (yes, they're tropical in origin, but this helps break dormancy in almost any seed, so long as it's dried). Take them out, and soak the ones you wish to plant in a 10% bleach solution (1:9 household bleach:water) for ten minutes, then rinse well. A strainer makes it easy. Then plant as usual, making sure the soil temp stays above 70F, as with all pepper seeds. 80 degrees is better.
I've never had much luck with Rocotos here in S Carolina, but I bet the panhandle country is perfect for them. They need a long season, or to be sheltered from freezing temps.
