I'll leave the official response to Mary. I'm the tyro on this block. I had already pulled the stems on most of my peppers when harvesting before reading up on the pickling recipes. I noticed the same instructions as you point out. That the stem should be intact and slits made in the sides of the peppers. I'm not sure how one would result in a firmer pepper, since both scenarios result in the same vinegar inundated pepper -- at least I think that's the point of the slits. I think pepperoncini classically come with stem attached, so that's probably why they're not removed in the official recipes. All this said, I've not tried my product yet, so who knows what it will taste/feel like. I have to wait for a couple months to give those peppers time to fully suffocate in their new, liquid-acid graves.
-naysen
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