Cool article quoted in part from the TCPalm, an online media outlet from Florida’s Palm Beach area:

Pepper fans can’t get enough of hot chilies

By GWEN SCHOEN
The Sacramento Bee
October 11, 2006
Chili-heads have no sympathy for those of us who live in fear of the hot pepper.

While blinking back tears, mopping sweaty brows and reaching for tissues to dab at their noses, they croak their insults and boast of their conquests.

• “Only a wimp takes out the seeds,” says Margaret Watson Hopkins of Rancho Murieta., Calif.

• “My motto is, if it doesn’t work with a hot pepper, it’s not food,” says Elizabeth Weintraub of Land Park, Calif. “I’ve been known to eat peppers so hot that nothing would help, not milk or even bread. The only thing I could do was stand over the kitchen sink and drool into it.”

• “I’m a hottie,” says Pattee Thorpe of Rocklin, Calif. “I eat hot peppers on everything: cereal, popcorn, ice cream. Once I was in a specialty food shop in Virginia where the owner was offering hot peppers to sample. He said the peppers were so hot that we had to sign a waiver stating we wouldn’t sue him if our mouths caught on fire. I signed the waiver and bought five jars.”

Most Americans just don’t understand the complexities of flavors in hot peppers, according to chef Rick Bayless, author of “Authentic Mexican: Regional Cooking From the Heart of Mexico” (Morrow Cookbooks, 384 pages, $30). Bayless is the chef and owner of Chicago’s Frontera Grill and Topolobampo, two of the nation’s most acclaimed Mexican restaurants.

“Most people focus on the heat and not the variety of flavors that hot peppers have to offer. Dumping a lot of fire into a dish is not good cooking,” Bayless says.

“Flavors can range from sweet to astringent and from mild to picante (spicy hot),” he says. “Some peppers have a grassy or floral flavor and others are smoky, nutty and earthy. When you know the difference, you can completely change the flavors of your dish.”

Chili-head Weintraub says she’s a connoisseur who can definitely tell the difference between the varieties.

“It’s more than just heat,” she says. “Some are deeper, richer flavor and some are more smoky. There is a difference, and people who really know their chilies can taste it.”

HOW HOT IS IT?

Capsaicin, an alkaloid found in chilies, is what gives them heat. Some peppers have it, some do not.
Capsaicin is measured on the Scoville scale, named after its inventor, Wilbur Scoville. One part capsaicin per million equals 15 Scoville units. A bell pepper, for example, registers zero and pure capsaicin is 16 million Scoville units.
The hottest pepper ever recorded, according to the Royal Society of Chemistry, was a red savina habanero at 577,000 Scoville units.

Here’s how the most common fresh peppers measure up:
Bell and sweet Italian: 0 Scoville units
Pepperoncini: 100-500
New Mexico: 500-1,000
Ancho, pasilla, poblano: 1,000-1,500
Sandia, rocotillo: 1,500-2,500
Jalapeno: 2,500-10,000
Serrano: 5,000-10,000
Habanero, Scotch bonnet: 80,000-300,000
Thai: 100,000-350,000
Red savina habanero: 577,000

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