In article >,
notbob > wrote:

> On 2010-07-02, isw > wrote:
> > With the ones I have, many of the red "shells" contain hard, black,
> > nearly flavorless seeds (or whatever), that I can't believe add anything
> > to the final dish.
>
> I suspect you may have somthing other than true szechuan peppers.
>
> I just partially crushed some szechuan peppers (not a true pepper) I
> bought from a little Chinese import store, which they had just
> received from mainland China. No little black seeds. I dug out my
> loupes and magnifiers and saw something that looked like a REALLY
> SMALL black seed, about the size of the POINT of a pin, but further
> scrutiny revealed them to be merely parts of the interior meat of the
> pepper. Beside, even this near microscopic particle had enough flavor
> to discern as being szechuan pepperish.
>
> You may have one of the bogus szechuan pepper substitutes which were sold as
> szechuan
> peppers back when they were banned from importation into the US,
> something grown in Hawaii, as I vaguely recall.

Take a look he http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sichuan_pepper

That looks like exactly what I have, black seeds and all. Tastes right,
too. And I have bought them both before and after the ban (but not
during). These are from after.

Isaac