Crushed red pepper is made from hot dried red peppers and is not made of one type of chili, but from various combinations of ancho, bell, cayenne and other dried red peppers. Crushed red pepper shakers have become as standard as salt and pepper on tables at Italian style restaurants and especially pizza parlors in the United States. Often there is a high ratio of seeds, which some people believe intensifies the heat of this flavorful condiment, whereas the heat actually comes from the vein of the pepper (pith)(off of which the seeds grow). Crushed red pepper is used in pickling, chowders, spaghetti sauce, pizza sauce, soups and sausage. As chilis have become more popular, the varieties of peppers used to make crushed red pepper have also changed.
Famous quotes containing the words crushed, red and/or pepper:
“‘Tis of the essence of life here,
Though we choose greatly, still to lack
The lasting memory at all clear,
That life has for us on the wrack
Nothing but what we somehow chose;
Thus are we wholly stripped of pride
In the pain that has but one close,
Bearing it crushed and mystified.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“The remnant of Indians thereabout—all but exterminated in their recent and final war with regular white troops, a war waged by the Red Men for their native soil and natural rights—had been coerced into the occupancy of wilds not far beyond the Mississippi.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)
“Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled pepper;
A peck of pickled pepper Peter Piper picked.
If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled pepper,
Where’s the peck of pickled pepper Peter Piper picked?”
—Mother Goose (fl. 17th–18th century. Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers (l. 1–4)