Scoville Scale

Cooking How-To, How-To
on July 17, 2012
Chile peppers
Mark Boughton Photography


The scale demonstrates what adventurous eaters already know: Peppers vary wildly in their level of hotness. Sweet bell peppers serve as a threshold with a zero rating; jalapeños go as high as 8,000; and Thai peppers can clock in at 100,000. In 1994, the Red Savina, also known as Dominican Devil's Tongue, was listed in Guinness World Records as the world's hottest, topping out at 577, 000, which, competitively speaking, seemed to turn up the heat. India certified its Naga Jolokia at 1,041,427. And England's Dorset Naga joined the battle with an impressive 970,000.

Why we crave something that causes our mouths to burn and our eyes to water is a subject of debate. Historically, the Carib tribe used the Scotch Bonnet pepper as a means of torture. Some say the burn triggers the production of endorphins, our body's natural opiate. Others say it's simply because once we've acquired a taste for heat, other foods seem bland.
No time to check the Scolville Scale? Here's a more manageable approach to gauging a pepper's hotness: Small peppers can burn more than large ones, and dried are hotter than their fresh counterparts.


—Jo Marshall