Mexican Heat: Popular Chilies
Tara A. Spears
Many of our favorite dishes are enhanced by the addition of some type of chili seasoning. It is believed that chili peppers were one of the first cultivated plants in the Western hemisphere and the first spice used anywhere in the world! Many of the most sought after chili are native to Mexico, including serrano, poblanero, tepin and habaneros.
By the early 1500s chili peppers were found on every continent, dramatically altering cuisines everywhere. Today, chiles are a popular ingredient in cooking. In American and Canadian supermarkets, chili are found in the produce section or in the sauces aisle, generally in jars marked as “mild,” “medium,” or “hot.” In Mexico will you can find an entire supermarket aisle with tubs of various types of fresh chili.
It‟s interesting that in 1912 an American pharmacist, William Scoville, devised a measure of spicy heat for comparing types of chili peppers.
According to the Mexican Archeology, Scoville heat units (SHU) measure the capsaicin concentration of chili. Capsaicin is a chemical contained in the pepper that produces the runny nose/ eye water/ flame on the tongue experience. This formula is still widely used but another method that uses high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) is a faster, more accurate means of measuring the concentration of heat-producing chemicals.
Let‟s look at four of the particular chilies that are traditionally used in Mexican cooking:
The famous habanera chili pepper packs a lot of fire. They grow mainly on the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico, where they are believed to have originated, though they can usually be grown anywhere as an annual.
My neighbor introduced me to a unique chili called Tepin pepper (or sometimes called Chiltepen). Don‟t let its size fool you, these tiny bright red-orange little balls are extremely hot. Tepin is harvested from the wild in the Mexican
desert where the heat level of the fruit can vary
In Spanish, the heat of the chiltepin is called arrebatado (“rapid” or “violent”), because, while the heat is intense, it is not very enduring. Still, one needs a cold beer to flush the fire.
The poblano chili is one of the less fiery peppers. The poblano pepper (named after the Mexican state of Puebla) is a relatively large, mild variety of chile popular in Mexican cuisine. Combining complex
The next time that you are visiting Mexico, check out the array of fresh chili at a tiangi (outdoor street market) or a local produce store. Just be sure to have a cold beer or other libation to accompany the test drive of the Mexican chili- some like „em hot!