Pando's version combines the sweetness of roasted peppers with the crunch of walnuts and raw green and red peppers, and a hint of cayenne heat.

Serve immediately, garnished with raw green pepper, if desired.

Traditionally the salad included raw red peppers, shallots, and artichoke hearts, new potatoes or other cooked vegetables.

In fact, only someone hungry for a raw pepper could possibly take offense at their flabbiness.

He chopped the raw peppers, pureed them in a food processor, whipped them together with some cream and "created" a red-pepper mousse.

The consumption of various foods during pregnancy has been linked to eczema; these include celery, citrus fruit, raw pepper, margarine, and vegetable oil.

Roasted bell peppers seem sweeter than raw peppers, and Harold McGee, the author of "On Food and Cooking" (Scribner, 1984), has a ready explanation.

It is made from tomatoes, cucumbers, onion, raw or roasted peppers, sirene (white brine cheese), and parsley.

You can eat it in raw or cooked peppers or as a dried powder, which you can add to food or drinks.

When the next plate arrived, again bearing three filaments of raw pepper, I asked a server about it.