Purple Peppers, Whole And Sliced

In Albums: food peppers produce

Jul 2nd, 2011, by Alex Zorach

This photo shows two purple peppers, a dark-purple variety of bell pepper. Unlike red, orange, or yellow bell peppers, the purple color of a purple pepper is only in a thin skin on the exterior of the pepper; the interior is bright green like a green bell pepper. These particular peppers, although they are dark in color, are actually not fully ripe, as evidenced by the very light color of the seeds.

Purple pepper are hard to obtain. I have never seen one for sale in a normal commercial outlet like a supermarket, but I occasionally see them at small farm stands. Whenever I have found them, they have been relatively small, delicate, thin-skinned, and highly aromatic. However, this likely reflects their origin in a small farming operation, as other varieties of peppers I bought from these same stands have exhibited similar characteristics.

Compared to other varieties of peppers purchased from or grown in similarly small operations, I have found purple peppers to be relatively strong in flavor, and to have a deep, fresh vegetal and herbaceous aroma. I like to say that purple peppers taste "more green" than green peppers, and most people who have sampled them say that this is a useful way to describe them.