Ithaca (WSYR-TV) - You may have already decided that you do or don’t like certain kinds of peppers – especially the hot ones.
But at Cornell, they are constantly developing new varieties you might want to eat.
Inside a Cornell greenhouse, plant-breeding engineers are working on the hottest peppers. The engineers are combining the characteristics of what’s known as the ghost pepper and the red savina.
“We can try to find the new hottest pepper or at least understand what makes the really hot peppers really hot,” said plant breeding engineer, Michael Mazourek.
The engineers don’t know exactly how hot the new peppers are right now. But cracking the peppers requires wearing gloves because the oil that produces the heat can stay get stuck on the skin for a full day.
The engineers have also designed other peppers that may not be extremely hot, such as the habanada, which they say is as flavorful as the habanero without the burning sensation.
“There are so many other flavors around it, this pepper actually we think is one of the keys to being able to have hot pepper flavor without the heat,” Mazourek said.
He says there is a growing market for new and different vegetables, like peppers, that might appeal more to consumers.
