A Primer On Peppers

In my corporate days, I worked as a marketing jock for a large food processing company in their foodservice division. I remember attending a presentation by a research company who was involved in forecasting new trends in the industry. One of the things the presenter said has stuck with me: "As America's population ages, the Baby Boomers will be looking for more richly-flavored and spicier foods. As a person ages, their taste buds don't distinguish flavors as readily as they used to--so the aging Boomers will be looking for help from the spice rack."

Well, as one of those aging Boomers, I can attest to the validity of that prediction. I really enjoy well-seasoned foods, and more and more of my Boomer brethren (and sisteren--yes, I just made up a new word) are discovering the variety and versatility of the pepper.

The thing about peppers is that they come in a whole host of sizes, shapes, colors, and--most importantly--levels of spiciness. As a matter of fact, there's even an objective way of measuring the heat index of various types and varieties of peppers called the Scoville Scale.

The Scoville Scale was developed in 1912 by an American chemist named Wilbur Scoville. Scoville developed a method of adding sugar to an extraction of a pepper's capsaicin until the heat is barely detectable. The more sugar is added, the higher the Scoville rating for a particular type of pepper.

For example, sweet bell peppers have no capsaicin at all and have a Scoville rating of zero. That's not really an eye-opener, is it? What is an eye-opener, however, is how hot the peppers are that occupy the upper level of the Scoville Scale. Here's a look at the peppers and their Scoville ratings:

• Bell pepper                             0
• Pepperoncini                       300
• Poblano                           1,500
• Jalapeno                          6,000

At this point, I want to intervene with a comment. Before I had ever heard of the Scoville Scale, I thought the jalapeno was one of the hottest peppers around. It is certainly the hottest I've ever had the courage to eat. But as it turns out, the tear-inducing jalapeno is like a 98-pound weakling compared to the truly powerful peppers that follow:

• Serrano                         18,000
• Cayenne                       40,000
• Scotch Bonnet             250,000
• Habanero                    400,000

And the king of all peppers--the one that literally cannot be handled with bare hands--is the knee-buckling Naga Jolokia (also known as the Ghost Pepper) with a Scoville rating of an astounding 900,000 Scoville units! Think of that--the Ghost Pepper's potency is 150 times more powerful than a jalapeno.

I'll admit it: when it comes to spicy foods, anything more than a very small taste of the jalapeno is about as far as I go. Call me a wimp. But at least I'll only have to deal with bloodshot eyes when I eat my jalapeno. For those of you who are tougher than me, I want to know when you're scheduling your ulcer repair.