I Miss my Nose Hairs

Whee, Lordy. I did another hot pepper taste test.

Today's list:

1. Jamaican red Scotch bonnet

2. Fatalii pepper (yellow), from the Central African Republic.

That was all I could handle.

The Jamaican red had a little bit of a fruity smell to it, and you can smell the capsaicin before you cut it. The taste is a little sweet and somewhat fruity, but not as fruity as a really good hot pepper. It's a nice pepper, but not fantastic. A good, basic, versatile Scotch bonnet. The heat is about like the Jamaican hot chocolate pepper I ate the other day. A little less intense than typical grocery habaneros.

Now the fatalii. This one is supposed to be a real son of a bitch.

When you cut it, it smells about like a white habanero, only more intense. A slight lemony scent plus a sharp scent like a beaker of acid.

It tastes a lot like the white habanero, too, except it seems to have a little sweetness. The heat seems tolerable at first, but it slowly spreads and gets worse until you wish you hadn't eaten the damn thing. Nearly as bad as a white habanero. This one would be better for cooking, because it has a little more flavor.

I like the Jamaican hot chocolate because it's unique. The smoky flavor will surely be useful, and the pepper is not too hot to be practical. The Jamaican red is a good all-purpose chinense pepper, but not so good I'd grow it again. The "habanero gold" peppers I bought at Norman Brothers Produce are a lot more flavorful, and they're very sweet.

The white habanero would be great for heating up food without a lot of pepper-picking, washing, and mincing. One pepper or two should light up a pot of food.

The fatalii is pretty similar to the white habanero, but perhaps easier to control.

Man, I'm sweating. That fatalii is something. And it made my nose run for 10 minutes.

I now have enough peppers for a year of cooking. The Jamaican red Scotch bonnet is covered in fat fruit, and they're turning bright red fast. The hot chocolates keep getting bigger and bigger. The cayenne plant seems ill, but it's producing anyway. A couple of other plants are starting to come on.

I'm wondering if I got the full hot chocolate effect by eating a fairly small one. Guess I can try another.

I hate to say it, but I should start cutting down plants I'm not in love with. It's fun having a variety of peppers, but what's the point, if they're not all fantastic?

Tomato season is finally here. We're supposed to dip below 70 degrees tonight, for the first time this year. It would be wonderful if my existing plants managed to pump out some fruit. I don't think they will, but at least the new ones will be moving into a pleasant environment, where the weather is cool, it doesn't rain too much, and I've murdered every bug in the yard with poison.

Now I have to get ready to make jambalaya for Sunday's Code Blue Cooking. I wonder which pepper I should use. I think the boring old cayennes would be great.