By Louis A. Zona
YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – As far as I’m concerned, there are few earthly pleasures that can compare to hot peppers on soft Italian bread. Delicious!
This formula is especially effective if those hot peppers came from a jar of Abruzzi’s peppers in oil.
There was a time when the Abruzzis canned those beauties in the kitchen of their restaurant, Café 422, in Warren. Today those jarred hot peppers – and many other brands – can be found in your neighborhood market.
Years ago, I heard an educational discussion about the health benefits of hot peppers, which claimed they can cure anemia.
I recently came upon a television program, “Superhot: The Spicy World of Hot Peppers,” that challenged celebrities to eat increasingly hotter peppers. The program discussed the human tolerance for the sensation of hot peppers in the mouth.
It got me thinking. While your mouth may be burning, those jalapenos could be helping you.
While I’m pondering the health benefits of hot peppers, I would think putting them on bread, with its high carbohydrate levels, would diminish those benefits.
Then there are the red-hot chili peppers – not the band, but the super-hot peppers that make your mouth feel like it is on fire. There’s a restaurant in New Castle, Pa., that puts them on salads, and boy are those babies hot!
If you’ve ever been surprised after biting into a super-hot pepper, you know that it’s an experience that you won’t forget. Those peppers aren’t pleasantly hot like Abruzzi’s. They are like being attacked by killer ants in your mouth. Needless to say, I will never be a contestant on any television program that challenges how much heat I can tolerate.
It has been said there are over 250 varieties of peppers. They range from mild to super-hot and include what I refer to as “mildly hot.”
Bell peppers are a gift from above. They outshine any other pepper for both taste and attractiveness and are great in salads or in the oven.
I love all three colors of bell peppers. The red, yellow and green varieties add a wonderful sweetness to our supper table.
One of my favorite dishes is stuffed peppers, although some people use banana peppers instead of bell peppers.
My favorite stuffing is rice-based although my late mother could create miracle stuffings using a combination of ground beef and rice.
Banana peppers just are not sweet enough for me although they add zest to Greek salads with a nice Italian salad dressing and green and black olives.
Red bell peppers baked in marinara sauce are hard to beat. So are those little pepperoncini peppers with the hard stems.
Super-hot peppers are used to make a spray that can be used as a weapon to subdue a criminal.
Fortunately, I never have been on the wrong side of such a device, and I’ve never had to subdue a bad guy with one.
Pepper spray gives police officers an alternative to using a gun and therefore can save lives.
I never have been in proximity of pepper spray, but I’ve seen the occasional news story that depicts the torment it can deliver. One can only imagine the horror of getting sprayed in the face with super-hot pepper juice.
I am definitely not a purist when it comes to peppers. It’s safe to say that I’ll never be given a show on the Food Channel.
I’m just someone who fell in love with Mr. Abruzzi’s bottled hot peppers on fresh Italian bread.