Chile Chile

The chile pepper (or chili pepper) is a sacrament here in southern New Mexico. I had never sampled it before a stint in the army sent me to Arizona, but I quickly became an addict. I now favor fairly mild varieties, though when I was younger, I lived a bit more adventurously.

Chiles are an American plant, spread to Asia after the voyages of Columbus - a bit of an irony, since he had set out to establish a route to get spices from India, but wound up being responsible for delivering them to India instead. New Mexico State University, right here in Las Cruces, NM, is the location of the Chile Pepper Institute, the world's center of Chile science and arbiter of all Chile questions.

The Wall Street Journal reports[subscription] that a new fiery champion has been crowned in the Chile world, the bhut jolokia from the Assam region of India. It measures a mind bogling one million Scoville Units, versus about 5000 for a Jalapeno, and something like 50,000 to 100,000 for Thai and Chinese hot peppers. Workers who process it need to dress like astronauts.

The Big Jims, Sandias, and Poblanos I like are rated only 500-2500 Scoville Units, while cherry peppers only rate about 50.

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