ABSTRACT
Paprika is a rich red powder used for its flavor and color in such foods as Hungarian goulash, chicken paprikash, and French salad dressing. Its source is the dried sweet pepper, the fruit of Capsicum annuum L., of the Solanacea family. In the 1950s technology was developed that allowed the extraction and concentration of the pigments responsible for the beautiful red-orange color. Today, oleoresins of paprika are one of the most eco nomically significant sources of natural food color produced from a botan ical source. The food coloring ability of paprika is a result of a mixture of carotenes and xanthophylls present as free pigments or mono-or diesters of fatty acids. O ther com ponents of an extract include oil, waxes, lecithin, sludges, capsaicinoids (pungent compounds), and flavor com pounds (Govindarajan and Sathyanarajana, 1991).
