Corno di Toro Pepper

The long glossy sweet pepper you get in a Tuscan trattoria, grilled or pan-fried with good oil and salt and nothing else. Corno di Toro means bull's horn, and the pods live up to it: 20 to 25cm long, dramatically curved, hanging down off the plant. It is a proper Italian heirloom and open-pollinated, so you can save your own seed.

There is no heat at all, just clean sugar sweetness with a faint fruity note, and the walls are thick and crunchy enough to hold up to grilling, frying or roasting without collapsing. The horn shape is a practical kitchen shape too, easy to slice into strips, easy to fill and roll, easy to grill whole. A well-grown plant gives 8 to 12 substantial pods in a season, more in a good year.

It ripens from glossy green to either a deep crimson (the Rosso form) or a bright lemon yellow (the Giallo). Both are equally sweet. Some packets are a single colour and some are mixed, so check the packet if the colour matters to you. British greenhouses grow Italian peppers a good deal better than most people expect.