"Penelope Periwinkle" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 19 Oct 2004 23:07:35 -0500, "Thomas"
scythicon311@yahoo(dot)com wrote:

I wrote:
For whom? Most of my peppers aren't on any Scoville
list I've ever seen. Besides, I already know how hot they
are.

LMFAO,
Well,
Clearly these already established numbers seem to matter little to
you.
Do you know the difference between a bell pepper and a cayenne, or for that
matter a habnerro?

Oh hon, I'm a pepper geek. It's pathetic; I'll natter away for hours
about everything from the growing of peppers to what to do with the
harvest. I'll merrily argue the relative merits of _C chinense_ vs _C
baccatuum_ until people's eyes glaze over and they desperately flag
down Ronald, their Trekie friend to escape the onslaught of pepper
trivia.


Anyone can grow nondescript peppers and say they are
"hot" or not.....

Exactly, which why I need a reference point for friends who
don't know a Scoville from a hole in the ground, but who would
like to have some peppers they can enjoy.


I encourage you to go with an established set of standards.

Why? Even when I talk to other pepper geeks and chiliheads, we
don't talk Scovilles. I'll be gushing about how wonderful the
Pimento De Chiero pepper is, and they'll ask me if it's hotter
than a jalapeno, and I'll say it's more like a cayenne. They
don't say "is it between 2500 and 5000 Scovilles?" and I
don't answer "More like 30,000 Scovilles."

And then there's the problem of different peppers having the
same or similar names. I've seen two versions of the Pimento
De Chiero, both known as a scent pepper, but one spelled "ie"
and the other spelled "ei" The one I'm growing (ie) has a small,
smooth yellow pod, while the other (ei) appears to have a larger, more
habanero-type pod. So, having a handle on the heat of the actual
peppers in my backyard does me more good than referring to a very
general, non-specific chart that may or may not have the pepper I'm
growing.

ObAside: Of course, being a pepper geek, I'm going to have to track
down the "ei" one and grow it to compare to the "ie" one so I can
drone on endlessly about which is likely the true scent pepper.

Of course I
could grow....hmmm let's see.... Billybobs worlds hottest peppers..and
then
say, well "all my rowdy friends say these here peppers are "reasonably
hot",
but then again you have the "bubba" that comes along and says " these here
peppers ain't nuthin!"

Yes! And so, if you want to be able to give "bubba" a pepper he'll
find hot, you need to know what he considers hot, not how many
Scoville units are in that particular pepper.

Just because your peppers aren't on the list means nothing.

It means the list is not very useful to me.


Penelope


That was impressively diplomatic...
PENELOPE FOR PRESIDENT ! ! !