Chile Pepper Facts:
What Makes a "Hottie"

Perhaps the chief misconception about chili peppers is their red-hot reputation. Many are fiery hot, but many others are sweet, mild, or richly flavored. Their hotness is concentrated in the interior veins or ribs near the seed heart, not in the seeds as is commonly believed (the seeds taste is extra hot because they are in close contact with the hot veins). If, when the pepper is cut open, the veins have a yellowish orange color in that area, it usually indicates the pepper will be a potent one.

The burning sensation that makes chili peppers so appealing to culinary thrill-seekers comes from capsaicin or more accurately a collection of compounds called capsaicinoids. These develop in the placenta or cross-ribs of the fruit, which is why that part of the chili pepper is the hottest. A single dominant gene transmits capsaicinoids. Bell peppers are just like jalapeno peppers and serrano peppers but bell peppers taste bland instead of pungent because they lack that gene.

In 1912, a pharmacist named Scoville came up with a heat index for measuring the "heat" in a chili product, or scoring capsaicinoid content. This index was called the Scoville Units and is still used today. A more modern version used by many chili writers is called "the Official Chile Pepper Heat Scale" with a rating of zero to ten. Bell peppers rate a zero because they contain no capsaicinoid. At a 5 rating: jalapeno peppers…at a 6 rating serrano peppers…all the way to the hottest of all, the habanero!

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