Fire in the Mouth
HABANEROS, TABASCOS, and JALAPENOS are the peppers that I grow and eat. Capsicum frutescens. Fire In The Mouth.
1) GROWING PEPPERS: Well-worked soil, with a pH slightly acid to neutral. Full sunshine, and a long growing season. Warm-to-hot temperatures, with the night temp not going below 50 degrees. Planted 18 inches apart; peppers are what I call "social plants" because they like for their outer leaves to brush up against the outer leaves of the plants that they're growing next to. Composted nutrients; otherwise, they feed well on 6-12-6. They're members of the Nightshade family, and need taken care of about like their cousins, the tomatoes.
2) PICKING PEPPERS: Peppers should be CUT, not PULLED, from the shrub. They can be eaten at any time that they reach sufficient size, but will have more vitamin C in them after they turn red. Be careful not to break the branch of the shrub when the fruit is picked.
3) EATING PEPPERS: The pungent sensation precedes a multi-layered gustatortial experience that is somewhere between vegetable and fruit, somewhere between Heaven and Hell. Even though the HABANERO is the hottest pepper, I don't eat it for the heat; I eat it for the fruit-flavors it puts on my tongue. I eat fresh TABASCOS for the broad range of flavors that are added to the other foods that I eat along with them. I eat JALAPENOS for their vegetable-like flavors. The physical textures of fresh peppers in the mouth and on the tongue, while they are being chewed, is an often overlooked joy.
4) APPRECIATING PEPPERS: Hot peppers are a good source of potassium, phosphorus, vitamin A, and vitamin C. I'm told that they stimulate blood circulation, and in doing so,
help digestion and blood pressure. The Old Folks said that peppers were good for neuralgia, rheumatism, and sore throat. The stimulation of endorphins, by capsaicin, is perhaps one of their major miracles.
5) RATING PEPPERS: Although modern chemistry now utilizes more technical laboratory techniques to measure the "hotness" of peppers, the traditional system has been the Scoville Scale (which indicates the level of capsaicin), developed by Wilber Scoville decades ago. Pure capsaicin measures 16,000,000 Scoville Units on this scale. HABANERO is rated at 350,000, TABASCO at 50,000, and JALAPENO at 5,000.
CAPSAICIN (C18H27O3N), otherwise known as 8-methyl-n-vanillyl-6-nonenamide, is the substance that makes peppers "hot." Actually peppers are not hot; peppers hurt. Capsaicin stimulates pain receptors, not thermoceptors or taste buds, and is actually a neurotoxin. Capsaicin causes the release of a neuromodulator called ENDORPHINS, a natural pain reliever and euphoria-inducer produced in the pituitary gland. This neurochemical is an opioid (the word endorphin was derived from "endogenous morphine") which the body normally utilizes during stress, injury, and pain. It blocks the action of the neurotransmitters which the nervous system uses to send pain signals to the brain.
That's why after the Fire In The Mouth, there's the Glow In The Body.
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