Red pepper (US: sweet red bell pepper). The large varieties are used as a vegetable and can be used either cooked or raw. Other varieties are smaller, long, with a pointed tip and filled with pungent seeds. They are used for seasoning, either dried or fresh. These peppers are not so strong in flavour as the chilli or cayenne pepper. In fact, in French, piment also means chillis, which are green or red, tapered and contain twice as much capsaicin as red peppers, which is why they provide so much heat to food. They are often available in dried or powdered forms. Colour is not necessarily a guide to the heat, which is measured in Scoville units (named after Wilbur Scoville). Generally speaking the scale goes from small and pointed, with thin skins, having the most heat through to large and blunt having the least. The greatest heat is contained in the membranes and seeds.
