Here’s what the number of bumps on the bottom of a bell pepper may tell you

Shopping for peppers? You might want to keep a rhyme in mind: The more bumps you see, the sweeter the pepper will be. Here’s why.

Key Points

• A produce expert believes a pepper with 4 or 5 bumps on the bottom helps guarantee sweetness.
• Always look for the freshest firm, unblemished peppers.
• No matter which bell pepper you choose, once cooked, its sweetness disappears.

There are so many interesting behaviors you’ll see only in the produce section of a supermarket—people sniffing, thumping or even rapping hard on the fruits and vegetables they’re planning to buy. But once you read about this trick for finding the sweetest-possible bell peppers, you might start counting parts of your produce, too.

Robert Schueller, director of public relations at Melissa’s Produce says that knowing the number of bumps on the bottom of a bell pepper (also referred to as lobes) is actually a way to discover which ones provide more sweetness than heat. It’s all about basic botany, according to Schueller. Peppers, it turns out, are actually fruits: “The botanical definition of a fruit is something that grows with seeds inside, so that includes things we traditionally think of as vegetables, such as cucumbers, squash, peppers and tomatoes,” he says.

A common myth circulating around the internet is that you can tell if a pepper is male or female based on the number of bumps (or lobes) on the bottom, but there’s one big snag in that theory: “Fruits themselves don’t have a gender, so saying something like ‘female peppers are sweeter’ is not accurate in a horticultural sense,” says Schueller. He explains that plants produce flowers that are male or female, and it’s these flowers that produce the fruit. But the fruit (the pepper) is neither male nor female.

It’s in the flowers, Schueller says, that the secret to sweetness lies. “Each plant has male and female flowers, but because the female flowers are more dominant, they tend to get pollinated more often, since bees usually choose the larger flower,” Schueller says. “More pollination leads to more lobes in the fruit.”

The peppers that develop from female flowers also have more seeds, on average, than the ones from male flowers. For smart produce shoppers, Schueller believes the important thing to remember is that the flesh of peppers from a female flower generally tends to be sweeter than that of the peppers produced by the less dominant male flowers.

Not all folks in the horticulture world are 100% behind Schueller’s theory about the number of bumps on peppers or that female flowers produce sweeter peppers, and some experts point to additional factors like growing conditions and ripeness, which, of course, could play a role. But Schueller stands firm that the flower makes the biggest difference in the eventual sweetness of a raw pepper.

Sweet Shopping Tips for Peppers

What does this mean for your average trip to the grocery store or farmers market? If you’re planning to serve raw peppers, you may want to try Schuller’s trick: Flip the bell peppers over and choose ones with four or five bumps. “Just remember, the more lobes they have, the sweeter they are,” Schueller says. “The sweetest pepper variety is red, followed by orange, which is somewhat sweet, and yellow, which is neutral.”

That’s all true for raw peppers, but Schueller says that once heat is applied and peppers are cooked, those detectable variations in sweetness are neutralized, and they all taste pretty much the same. So if you’re planning to cook peppers, forget the counting and just pick up firm, spot-free peppers. Any pepper you pick up for stuffed peppers, sheet-pan sausage & peppers or roasted peppers & onions will be equally delicious, no matter the number of bumps.

The Bottom Line

It’s never too late to learn new tricks for selecting the best produce and to see which ones work for you. When choosing bell peppers for raw dishes like salads, look for firm, unblemished ones and, if you want to test Schueller’s trick, count the bumps on the base of each pepper. If you see four to five bumps, he is convinced you have a better chance at getting a sweet, delicious pepper. However, if you plan to cook bell peppers, counting the bumps is not necessary, as heat will diminish their sweetness regardless.

Read the original article on EatingWell