THE CHINESE HERB GARDEN - Growing Chinese Vegetables in Your Own Backyard - page 132

Hot Pepper
L A J IAO , L AT J IAO
Capsicum frutescens
(color photo, page xv)
Although I would classify sweet peppers as a vegetable rather than as an herb, hot pep-
pers or chilis are never eaten as a vegetable — not even in China, where they are an
essential ingredient in Hunan and Szechwan cookery. I have therefore put hot peppers
where the Chinese would plant them: in the herb garden.
Pepper is so much a part of Asian cuisine that it is necessary to differentiate these
hot peppers from other types of pepper you may encounter in the spice section of
Chinese grocery. Szechwan peppercorns, for example, are the dried berries from the
prickly ash tree ( Zanthoxylum ailanthoides ).