Most sweet and hot peppers begin green and then ripen to a dizzying array of beautiful colors including red, orange, yellow, and purple. Any variety of sweet bell pepper can be harvested as a green bell pepper, or left on the plant to fully ripen, becoming sweeter, and more nutritious in the process. Hot peppers, often called chilies, can also be harvested at any stage in development and will sometimes take on new identities depending on whether they are harvested for fresh eating or dried. Ancho chilies, for example, are poblanos left to become red-ripe and then dried. Nearly every culinary tradition seems to have found a place for the joy (and occasional sorrow) of hot peppers, which are “hot” because they contain capsaicin, the oily substance that makes your tongue burn. One or two pepper plants will fit easily in any garden, and probably find its way into every dish!
