HATCH CHILE PEPPER

In autumn, a certain magic takes over every village, town, and city in New Mexico as the world-famous green Hatch chiles are harvested. Ground zero is Hatch, a tiny farming community nestled in the Rio Grande Valley, less than an hour from the Mexican border. Almost in concert, awkward metal tumbler contraptions, more reminiscent of a Spanish Inquisition-era interrogation device than a culinary tool, pop up like mushrooms on street corners throughout the state. Well blackened from decades of use, each roaster is equipped with a large crank for turning the enormous basket, which is generally operated by an old man in boots and a cowboy hat. For weeks, no matter where you are in the state, the air is perfumed with the rich, smokey-sweet aroma of roasting green chiles that wafts through the streets. And if you were to drive through any of these towns, you’d see lines of New Mexicans from all walks of life, clutching their burlap bags full of green chiles, waiting patiently to shell out a couple bucks to have them roasted…and tide them over for the year.

New Mexico green chile is the ultimate symbol of that pride, as are crabs in Maryland. You would be hard-pressed to find a restaurant in the state… fine dining, casual, taqueria, and even fast food joints…that do not offer green chile across the menu. In fact, green chile is the “Official Vegetable” of New Mexico (and, yes, they don’t care that it is a fruit). In fact, their love of green chile has spawned legislation to make New Mexico the first state to have an official question…“red or green?”…and an official aroma… “green chiles roasting in the fall.”

New Mexico’s love affair with the green chile started in 1894, at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, when horticulturists started to experiment with a variety of peppers that were being grown by dirt farmers around Las Cruces, at the southern end of the state, on the edge of the Chihuahuan Desert. After breeding and cross-breeding these peppers for over 20 years, the university introduced “New Mexico No. 9” to the world…the first of the New Mexico green chiles. This chile was eventually developed into the Anaheim green chile, a slightly milder version of today’s green chile, and the seeds were shipped off to California, where they could be grown on large farms with modern irrigation methods and equipment. The rest stayed home in the high desert.

Over the years, several cultivars, closely related to Anaheim were developed…NuMex Big Jim, NuMex Sandia, New Mexico 6-4, and a few others, which are all grown on farms in the southern portion of the state, where the soil is most fertile. The differences between the chile peppers are subtle, almost indistinguishable to the untrained eye, but the heat varies from 1,000 to 8,000 Scoville units, which gives them a decent bit of heat, without being overwhelming.