Last Garden Update: Corking Chili Peppers

We pulled in the last batch of chili peppers from our garden this week and noticed several peppers had funny whitish brown marks on their sides like in the picture above. What's going on? Find out after the jump!

These white striations are actually stress marks or "corking." Their appearance usually indicates that the pepper is ripe and ready to pick! They aren't harmful in any way and don't affect the flavor of the pepper, though some people argue that corking indicates a hotter pepper.

Now that we know what this is, we've also noticed these marks on some of the peppers (both sweet and hot varieties) that we've picked up at the farmer's market. Good to know that even the professionals get corking on their peppers!

(Image: Emma Christensen for the Kitchn)

Comments (3)

that pepper's got stretch marks

posted by greyrussian on November 7th 2008 at 7:03am
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That's exactly what I was thinking : )

posted by javagrrrl on November 7th 2008 at 7:18am
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Yeah, stretch marks are a good thing though ;)
I wait until my peppers have the corks before I pluck them b/c I've noticed in the last 3 years of pepper gardening here in Florida, that they are considerably hotter and better tasting when they are corked!

posted by babagrlshell on November 7th 2008 at 2:53pm
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