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Straight Dope Message Board > In My Humble Opinion > Hot Pepper Identification

Turbo Dog
Member

Registered: Feb 2001
Location: St. Louis, MO
Posts: 1371
Hot Pepper Identification
I have some pepper plants that are doing great, but I have no idea what they are. When I was buying seeds for habaneros and cayenne, my wife reminded me that one of the packs that I grabbed, and apparently planted, was labelled “Hot Peppers”. That’s it. No scientif name, no listing on the back, nothing.

They are marvelous producers, the peppers growing like crazy and unbelievably fast. They are growing straight down, straight up, sideways, straight as an arrow to complete circles, corkscrews, etc. One recently started to ripen (maybe?) and went from green to bronze which today has turned (see pic) um… burgundy? A very odd color that I’ve never seen on a pepper. The closest things seem to be Anaheims or New Mexicos, but the surface texture is quite different. The few sites I’ve found don’t seem to show anything similar to these things.

Any ideas?

07-26-2003 08:47 AM
fotosbyfrank
Member

Registered: Jul 2003
Location: Oxford, CT
Posts: 36
They sorta look like cayenne peppers to me. I used to grow them, but I never saw a purple one.

07-26-2003 08:54 AM

Motorgirl
Member

Registered: Apr 1999
Location: Arlington, MA USA
Posts: 732
I can’t help with identifying them, unfortunately, but maybe this site might help:

http://www.chetbacon.com/peppers/Hotpeppers.html

Some books you might be able to get at your local library or bookshop that might help:
http://www.bayoutraders.com/body_books.html

Logged 07-26-2003 09:30

Turbo Dog
Member

Registered: Feb 2001
Location: St. Louis, MO
Posts: 1371
I also grow cayennes and there is a big difference between the two, even in the leaves. I’m hoping to find out what they are so that I know when the best time for picking is. I’d hate to wait until they all change color only to find that I should have used them green.

Logged 07-26-2003 09:32AM

Zenster
Member

Registered: Jun 2000
Location: Silicon Valley
Posts: 7896
What you have seem to be either Cayenne or Chilaca peppers. Compare your fruit with this site. Let us know what you decide. What sort of heat do they have?

07-26-2003 09:50 AM

All times are GMT -8 hours. The time now is 09:50 AM.

Logged in user: Zenster [logout]

A short reply with very little text.

It still gets hamstered.

Any news from Jerry as to why this is happening?

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I’ve heard no news yet. I’m sorry that this is happening to you, and I wish that I DID have some news. I just wanted you to know that somebody noticed your problem.

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Zenster, I just noticed your missing post in the pepper thread would put it between Turbo Dog’s and mine. I had no problem posting and there are others after mine.

This is probably useless info, but it’s all I can contribute.

Maybe hamsters like hot peppers?

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Not useless at all, Musicat. Thanks for verifying this. My second post got hamstered as well. Here it is:

Zenster
Member
Registered: Jun 2000
Location: Silicon Valley
Posts: 7891

quote:Originally posted by Musicat
… But one of the links in this thread talks about “[c]harred, steamed, and peeled before using” as preparation. What is the purpose of that, and did I do something wrong by just chopping them up?..

A long time ago I had a mexican girlfriend who used to char tomatoes on the gas stove then peel the skins before using them in cooking. That sounds like the pepper preparation mentioned above. What’s the point of that?

And RE pepper identification: The City Wok chinese takeout in Los Angeles, where I used to live, made a “City Wok Beef” dish with glazed beef strips and some kind of tiny peppers. They were about 1-2" long, flattened, whole, red, and so hot I had to cut them up first. What kind were these?
musicat, you did nothing “wrong.”

Peppers can be prepared in almost any way imaginable. Fresh, roasted, pickled, stewed, baked and so forth. Here’s a link to the Salsa 101 tutorial in my recipe thread.

Many chiles have a rather tough exterior membrane. Charring the peppers ahead of time separates the interior flesh from the skin. The heating process also begings to convert sugars in the fruit, giving it a nice carmelized flavor. Many peppers benefit from this roasting process.

Charring tomatoes is a quick way to remove their skins. Another method is to make a slit or two at the bottom of the tomato and drop it into boiling water for one minute. Just like with chiles, the skin will be loosened by the heat and easier to peel. Charring tomatoes also softens them a bit, which can be desireable for some preparations. There is a slight flavor shift as noted above, but not so dramatic as in the case of the chiles.

The small red peppers you had at the Chinese restaurant were Thai or Dutch (Holland) chiles. They are extremely hot peppers and favored by many Asian cultures.

Feel free to post any other questions that you might have here or in the recipe thread. I’ll be happy to share whatever knowledge I have with you. There are several other salsa recipes listed in the Recipe Thread’s Active Index. You may wish to give them a try sometime.
Report this post to a moderator | IP: Logged
07-26-2003 11:32 AM

The boards are running very quickly right now and yet many of my posts are still being hamstered today. I’m really curious about this.

I also sort of curious as to why Priceguy’s thread was locked without comment. It forced me to start this new one.

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Thanks for your prompt response, Lynn. I hope you’re feeling much better these days.

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Hey, thanks, Zenster, your post was more informative than anyone’s in the pepper thread. Maybe we’ve found a way around the hungry hamsters – post in this Forum instead!

Seriously, tho – I’d like to ask you some more pepper questions, (and the links didn’t carry over to your pseudo-post, probably cause of the text cut & paste) but maybe we’d better wait until the problem is fixed and the thread works again. I’ll watch for your name to show up in the pepper thread.

And Lynn, last I heard from you, you were at death’s door. Can we assume you have recovered? Or is that your ghost talking?

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Zenster, would you like me to post your missing post in the pepper thread? Others are responding to my pepper question, and you are being left out of the discussion.

Of course, I don’t want to violate any posting ethics, so mods, don’t let me do this if I shouldn’t.

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Musicat, I’ll repost my work if it has gone missing again. Thanks for letting me know, I’m glad you enjoyed it so much.

Lynn, (and Tuba Diva) just for grins, here’s the Post ID# of my poached salmon recipe that went AWOL from Volume II of the Ultimate Recipe Thread:

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?postid=3755835#post3755835

People in Czarcasm’s Portland Meeting thread were able to view it last night and now it is gone. I’m hoping that the ID #s and such will help Jerry to trace the fault path. I’ve had to post this recipe at least four times now.

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Zenster: Think you might have lost one in the beet thread, as well. Unless I am imagining things. Again.

  • Tamerlane
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You are quite right, Tamerlane. I’ve reconstructed it to the best of my ability. Thanks for letting me know.

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Freaky. I think your re-post just dropped off that thread again.

  • Tamerlane
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Tamerlane, you are right. It appears as though nearly every single one of my posts made this morning all disappeared. I really, really want to believe that this is the work of the hamsters.

I am also getting sick and tired of finding my posts missing.

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Wait, is this happening exclusively to Zenster, and happening exclusively with recipes?

:frowning:

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Achenar, my recipes take the most hits. I suspect this might be due to their typical length. But this is not the key to the problem. I have had nearly as many short one paragraph posts hamstered in the last few days as well. I’d really like to know what is causing it. I do not see anyone else complaining about this.

Tuba Diva has assured me that, due to the volume of my posting, I see this more often. While that makes some sense, I still don’t see anyone else mentioning how their posts are being hamstered too. In the last two weeks, I think I’ve see one other poster ask where the heck their reply went to.

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I’ve seen it, too; you’re not imagining things, that’s for sure. Oddly enough, I’ve never noticed it happening to anyone else. I don’t think length is the issue, or we’d lose half the posts in GD. Maybe you should find a way to make your recipes into a GD?

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It’s happened to me a few times, too. If you search for posts by me in GQ in the past week (or maybe two weeks, by now), one of the threads which comes up is the one on English accents. I did post to that thread, but it’s not showing up, now.

I seem to recall seeing this happen to me a few other times, but without evidence.

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I’m going to start listing the posts and their post ID#s in the hope that this might help Jerry.

This one went missing from the fictional diseases thread in the last 24 hours.

howthread.php?postid=3762489#post3762489

Skin failure! (Dr. Nick Riviera)

Tertiary coreopsis of the patella (thanks, Arthur Hoppe)

The vapors.

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Hey, Zenster - well, as you know, I’ve witnessed several of your posts disappearing into the night (several right after I posted, which causes me to wonder whether if spontaneous combustion would occur if you and I ever met in person).

Out of the (four? five? I’ve lost count) of your posts that I’ve seen vanish, only one was over 100 words. Given the length of many of the OP’s, one would certainly think that number of words wouldn’t cause a post to fade away, and as for the frequency of your posts, I can point to any number of Dopers (myself included) that post with at a higher rate and haven’t had any posts deleted. I’m up to something approaching 1,000 after a few months on the board - and the only post I’ve ever submitted that faded away occured right after one of Zenster’s deleted posts.

I have to wonder if the hamstering has something to do with your user name (i.e. begins with “Z”). I know only enough about the IT world to be dangerous, but assuming the internet gods aren’t throwing daggers at you, there must be a logical reason for the post deletions, one would think?

Thanks to all the admins for their help in resolving this mystery!

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You know, you really ought to quit with the mushrooms, genetic predisposition or no. :wink:

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I think that the simplest explanation is that this is happening to everyone, at about the same rate, but that Zenster is just the only one attentive enough to notice. Most likely, the software keeps track of users for purposes like this by userid number, not name, so the z wouldn’t be relevant.