I like hot food but I have to admit that my knowledge of peppers is limited to ordering Thai food with only one red pepper next to it on the menu. To help educate me in the way of the pepper — and in pre… I mean pepperation for this weekend’s chili cook-off in West Chester — I interviewed my friends from the WC Grower’s Market. Jeff and Joanne Porter of Chile Spot helped me learn a little bit more about chile peppers. Chile Spot is a Downingtown based producer and distributor of unique chile pepper products and can be found at the West Chester Growers Market and online at www.chilespot.com.
Q: Why are chile peppers so darn hot?
A: The heat in chile peppers comes from a chemical called capsaicin and is only found in chile peppers.
Q: Chipotle seems to be hottest new pepper on menus. Where did this pepper come from?
A: The Chipotle pepper is actually a smoked jalapeno and is generally found dried or canned and packed in adobe sauce.
Q: Is it true that the tip is the hottest part of the pepper?
A: Contrary to popular belief, the hottest part of the chile pepper is not the tip, but rather along the walls of the pepper where the veins carry a concentration of heat. Also, the seeds do not contain any heat at all.
Q: What is the hottest pepper in the world?
A: The hottest pepper in the world is the Bhut Jolokia, which is native to India. If you think that a Jalapeño pepper is hot, a Bhut Jolokia pepper is 200 times hotter!
Get more from Chile Spot at the wcdish.com booth at the Chili Cook-off.
