bjones
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Chili means different things to different people. To some, it is a type of stew or soup with a tomato and pepper base mixed with beans and, often, meat. To people in the southwest U.S. and northern Mexico, chili refers to either a green or red sauce made by boiling the flesh of Anaheim chili peppers and removing the seeds and skins. This type of chili is completely uniform and no part is hotter than another. Everyone, however, knows of chilies as one of several species of pepper from which these dishes are derived. All the heat comes from the pepper, and some species of chili are hotter than others. The heat of peppers derives from a naturally occurring chemical called capsaicin. The higher the concentration of capsaicin, the hotter the pepper. There is even a special unit created to measure the hotness of peppers. Scoville heat units, or SHU, tell us how hot a pepper is. Bell peppers are the least hot variety of chili. They don’t have any capsaicin so they measure at 0 SHU. Jalpenos are a popular variety of chili that measures between 3,000 and 6,000 SHU. The hottest chili in the Americas is considered the habenero at 300,000 Scoville units, and the hottest in the world is the naga jolokia, from India, measuring at over 1 million SHU.
This leaves only the question of which part of the pepper is the hottest. Many will tell you that the seeds and the white membrane, or vein, that runs down the hollow center of the pepper are the hottest parts. This is a misconception. Although the seeds and membranes contain capsaicin, they contain much less than the flesh of the inner walls of the pepper. The seeds and membranes are, however, much hotter than the outer skin. As for the flesh of the inner walls, the pepper also gets hotter near the stem. The tip of the pepper contains less capsaicin because it is not as mature as the older, upper part.
 Posted 5182 day ago
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