From: babs@jfwhome.FUNHOUSE.COM (Babs Woods)
Newsgroups: rec.food.cooking
Subject: Re: Request for HOT peppers
Date: 27 Dec 92 22:34:35 GMT
Organization: Our Lady of Perpetual Mirth (Pacifica)

In <qVVcwB3w161w@cdthq.UUCP> gary@cdthq.UUCP (Gary Heston) writes:

>dye@i88.isc.com (Ken R. Dye ) writes:

>> In article <Ti42VB3w161w@cdthq.UUCP> gary@cdthq.UUCP (Gary Heston) writes:
>> >deniseo@hpmwtd.sr.hp.com (Denise O'Connor) writes:
>> >
>> >>  Recipe for the HOTTEST chili peppers to use in cooking.
>> >
>> >Habanero, a.k.a. scotch bonnet peppers, are reputed to be the
>> >hottest. Some claim that there are some Thai peppers equal or
>> >hotter.
>> 
>> 	What is a Thai pepper?  Is it a Seranno?

>A pepper from Thailand. I have no idea what the variety would
>be, but I've met a lady from Thailand that eats jalapenos like
>candy, repeatedly commenting that they're not hot....

>Gary Heston, at home....
>gary@cdthq.uucp


	Well, I have in front of me a catalogue of various peppers and
things (Old Southwest Trading Company, DS Division, Box 7545,
Albuquerque, NM 87194 -- write for a free catalog), and they give 
many descriptions and comparisons.  Thai peppers seem to be in
the piquin pepper type, near as I can work out.  They're small and
extremely hot.  They're not as big as japones, which some classify
as either cayenne or serrano chilis, but they're also at least as
hot.  The answer is that they're serranos, but apparently piquins.

	The Whole Chili Pepper Book deals with this group of chilis
(those of you with a copy can read along with me, p. 33). Basically,
they wrote that it's also called things like chiltecpin, bird pepper,
flea chili, all names because they're very small peppers.  "Near El
Coyote, Sonora [Mexico], saplings as tall as people form a dense, wild 
chile forest."  (*My.*)  The "tepin" forms are more pea shaped and
the "piquin" types more bullet-shaped. 

	Thai peppers are also ornamental, growing their fruit upwards 
on the stems, as supposedly most or all hot peppers will do.  (I suspect 
that the smaller ones are likelier to do this than the ones that make
bigger fruit, since bigger peppers are heavier.)  The photo on the page 
before 23 (photo plates don't have numbers) shows them growing and dry,
and on the plant looks just like the small peppers I've been getting
when they're gotten really red.  Many of mine didn't get red, but a
mix of green-red, but the red ones looked like these.  The picture of
the chiltepin on the plant on the previous page is too round to be
the Thai peppers I was getting, the ones I've seen at the market in
packages look much more like the Santaka peppers pictured on the 
next-previous page to those, which seem more like the dimensions the 
Thai peppers in my windowsill should be growing to.  

	I have some Cayenne Slim Jim and some Tabasco peppers also in
pots in the window, but so far they're not mature enough to have 
given me much fruit.  They're so close on the sill they may all
cross-pollinate, so they results of further waves of peppers from
these plants could be interesting, crossing also with the Thai 
peppers (!).  

	If anyone has anything more definitive than I've been able to 
offer, please add it to the discussion.  Now I'm curious as to just
where Thai hots really do fall in classification.  If anyone has
addresses for seed places, please post them and I'll see if I don't
have them and add them to my current hot pepper source list file.  If 
enough people ask me for these addresses (the ones I've written to
mostly), then I'll post them all.  (Only this month, though, as I 
return to my last semester of undergrad hell Feb. 1, 1992.)  

				-babs

		Food's not fun unless it hurts!

-- 

"Excuse me, while I dance a little jig of despair."
	- hadley@ics.uci.edu (Ted Hadley)