Edible Pepper Garden. Rosalind Creasy
of factors; it may be variously written chili, chile, or chilli, as in chili peppers, chile peppers, chilies, or chiles. All are correct, as they are common names derived from various locales. For the purposes of this book, I chose to use the terms chili and chilies.
To experience the color shift as they mature, we laid out three different color stages of peppers, from unripe on the left, to ripest on the right. ‘Cal Wonder’ and ‘Gypsy’ are in the top row; a purple ornamental, ‘Yellow Cayenne,’ and ‘Early Jalapeño’ are in the middle row; and ‘Sweet Banana’ and ‘Golden Bells’ are on the bottom.
Blocky bell peppers are the most popular sweet peppers in America. Some of the red and yellow bells have been around for many years, but the lilac, white, and orange bells have been bred in the last few decades.
Hot Peppers
The hotness of hot peppers comes primarily from capsaicin, a pungent and irritating phenol. This chemical is located in the chili pepper’s placental tissue, which is found in the light-colored veins on the walls of the pepper and around the seeds. Until fairly recently, the average American gardener ignored chili peppers, so our plant breeders and seed people did not give them much attention. Consequently, most of these fiery cousins are less domesticated than the sweet bell pepper.
While there is an expanding collection of selected chilies, and even a few hybrid jalapeños and poblanos, the less-domesticated chilies differ from bell peppers in a number of ways. The less-domesticated ones are often slower to germinate, and some grow more slowly. A few need very warm weather. Others are more disease resistant than most bells. Chili plants are generally taller, more open, and rangier than bells. Some varieties hold their fruits on top of the leaves in a decorative way, but most produce fruits that hang down. Certainly among the most beautiful vegetables, chili pepper fruits can be large or small, and round or elongated. Unripe, they can be green, black, yellow, orange, white, or purple. Like their bell cousins, they ripen through a range of colors including orange, or even brown, but most become red. Chili peppers range in hotness from mild to scorching.
Whenever I talk with gardeners and chefs about chilies, the conversation eventually turns to their heat. And the question always arises, What makes the same pepper variety fiery hot one time but mild another? Most of us have planted the same variety and had it come up mild one year but quite hot the next. In discussing this inconsistency with seed people, I learned that there can be different reasons for the variation. Most agreed that the main reason was climatic differences. A somewhat mild chili pepper, for example, might get hotter than usual if grown under the stress of hot and dry conditions. A large difference, however, would be very unusual. A jalapeño might be milder one year than another, or milder in a wet climate than a dry one, but it would still be quite hot, and a mild chili such as an ancho will never be extremely hot.
Another factor affecting the hotness of chilies involves different strains, or subtypes, of the same variety. All jalapeños are not created equal. A generic jalapeño from the nursery, or ordered from a seed company, can vary widely depending on which strain is offered. (For a discussion of varieties and why they vary, see page 41 in “The Pepper Garden Encyclopedia.”)
Putting aside the above minor variations, what everyone really wants to know is, Which variety is the hottest? A number of tests have been used over the years to determine how hot a pepper is, the oldest being the Scoville Organoleptic Test, in use since 1912 (see page 9 for more information on the Scoville test). Recently the Official Chile Heat Scale has become popular, which rates chilies on a 0 to 10 scale with bell peppers as 0 and habañeros at 10; jalapeños rate 5, cayennes 8, and chiltepíns 9. Craig Dremann has created his own hotness scale, based on his testing, which he includes in his Redwood City Seed catalog to help you choose your peppers.
‘Large Thick Red Cayenne’ is one of many types of cayennes and is very hot.
Throughout much of the American Southwest, wreaths and ristras of chili peppers are hung on doors and from house eaves to signify prosperity.
The aforementioned scales are all based on human perceptions of heat and are all helpful but obviously subjective. More uniform, objective testing has been done at New Mexico State University using a high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) machine. Instead of human perceptions, it records the quantifiable amount of numerous capsaicinoids in an individual pepper. While we think of just one chemical as responsible for the heat, in fact, any one hot pepper contains a number of related capsaicinoids, each with its own characteristics. Some sting instantly, while others take time to bite and build slowly. Some affect the tongue, while others burn the back of the mouth. Their flavors differ as well. Some are described as fruity, while others are musky or smoky. The HPLC machine can quantify the chemicals in only one pepper at a time, and because peppers differ from season to season and plant to plant, it really just gives us a ballpark number. Of course, the question still arises, Which is the hottest? According to Dr. Paul Bosland, who has access to this machine, no matter how many chilies he tests, the habañero always tops the scale.
While the question of how hot a pepper might be is fun to discuss, a very hot chili pepper such as the habañero or ‘Tepin’ can actually burn you. Craig Dremann recommends that if you’re going to eat a chili pepper you’ve never had before, you should taste it very, very carefully. When he tries a new pepper, he bites into it very slightly with his teeth, and then gingerly tastes the top of his teeth to see what is happening. He then proceeds gradually to bite through the skin and then finally into the chili pepper itself. He avoids using his tongue and lips until he knows the pepper is sufficiently mild.
No matter which variety you choose, peppers hot or sweet enliven the meal and are beautiful in the garden. As gardeners, we have a fabulous choice of peppers, and the mightiest chef can only sigh and yearn for such a flavor-filled option. The following sections will make all your chili dreams possible.
A bountiful basket of the colorful pepper harvest.
[Scoville Units]
In 1912, Wilbur Scoville, a pharmacologist, developed a test to determine the capsaicin content of a hot pepper. He dissolved exact amounts of chili peppers in alcohol diluted with sugar water and had a panel of at least five tasters rate the heat. The hotness was recorded in multiples of one hundred Scoville units. While obviously subjective, this rating did give a rough idea of how hot a pepper variety might be. Today, we analyze peppers’ heat using more scientific methods, with a high-performance liquid chromatography machine. The machine-produced numbers are then converted to Scoville units.
The chart to the left gives approximate Scoville unit readings for some of the more popular peppers.
| SCOVILLE HEAT SCALE | |
| Pepper Variety | Scoville Units |
| Habañero types | 100,000-300,000+ |
| Chiltepíns | 50,000-100,000 |
| Thai | 70,000-80,000 |
| Cayenne, aji, tabasco | 30,000-50,000 |
| Serrano, hot cherry | 15,000-30,000 |
| Jalapeño, Fresno | 5,000-15,000 |
| Ancho, pasilla | 1,000-1,500 |
| ‘NuMex Big Jim,’ ‘Anaheim’ | 100-500 |
| Sweet bells, pimientos | 0 |
the Creasy pepper gardens