transparent

bought this one at a mexican grocery shop where they sell fresh chilli mix in bulk, imported from mexico. i bought a bunch and after a while they dried & shrivelled up. curiously, the skin of one of them has become transparent and seeds can be seen inside! unfortunately, i do not know what it is.

rocoto from chile

two years after sowing seeds i got during a trip to santiago de chile, the first 2nd year plant rocoto has finally matured (right in time as night temps have gone below 10C this week). as soon as a few more pods mature it will be time to rescue this peruvian rocoto relleno con carne recipe!

bangalore torpedoes

a bangalore torpedo is an explosive charge placed in the end of a long extendable tube, used to clear obstacles from a distance. its usage was famously depicted in spielberg's d-day landings picture saving private ryan. one does not need much imagination to work out why these peppers are called in such a way... the picture pays tribute to virtualpepper.org, whose demise was announced yesterday.

award

the slowest ripening award is shared by these two, a chile rocoto and an ají amarillo.

harvest

time to harvest! another sunny week helped the slow ripening. first one is an unknown brazilian chinense (or frutescens), nice and punchy apricotty taste. second is a white habanero. third is the fearsome naga morich. they have a very characteristic ripening, from top to bottom, leaving a yellowy band between the ripe/unripe parts.
all in all, a nice fall harvest. what to do with the nagas? probably use a one to cook some salsa and store the others to make some insect repellent for next season...

chillihunt intensifies

the trail went very cold... firstly, dewitt's fiery foods newsletter info request drew a blank. secondly, a message posted in a chiapas travelling forum was answered as follows: "El chile que se muestra en la foto, en Chiapas es nombrado chile blanco (no es siete caldos) no tengo alguna imagen de chile siete caldos pero lo puedes localizar en los mercados de Chiapas. Lo que puedo decir es que el nivel de picante no es tan alto como su nombre lo indica." (the chile shown in the photo is known in chiapas as white chilli (it isn't the siete caldos). i do not have any image of the siete caldos but you can find it in the markets in chiapas. what I can say is that its heat is not as high as its name implies). back to square one...

then, out of the blue the trail heated up with an unexpected email from johnny n. olsen (here's his malus rustika chilli web site), saying that he had grew a chilli paloma (pictured) in 2003 from seeds purchased at örtagardens plantskola in denmark. the örtagardens site describes it as an annuum that "Gulvit till orange-röd, ca. 3 cm, lite bullig men spetsig. Het till mycket het. Går bra att torka och mala. Sätter rikligt med frukt." (yellow-white to orange – red, about 3 cm, a little bumpy but pointy, hot to very hot. great for drying and powdering. Yields very well). despite the chilli matched the long-solís book description other than the purple patches, its origin needed to be ascertained. an email to örtagardens was quickly replied by rune brand: "We got the seeds from friends who traveled in Mexico 1993. They bought it in San Cristobal Chiapas and we have been growing it since then and its quite popular amongst our customers. Yours Rune". hurray!

now, i got a hunch. the chile paloma pictured sounds and looks very similar to another one called pico de paloma (pictured next). have found references to de pico de paloma in chiapas, tabasco & yucatan and long-solís describes the pico de paloma as chile de árbol... could all of them be related?

on the other hand, doing some more internet detective work, found a siete caldos hit in flickr from a guy called caracobar, looking 100% pubescens. doesn't say where it is taken but caracobar's album is full of pics from guatemala (confirming that rocotos are also called siete caldos there).

fall

fall is already here but weather is sunny and holding, day temps slightly above 20C and night ones around 15C. plants are full of peppers that are maturing slowly. picked up some late 7pods & congo trinidads.
1/2 of the big 7pod went into a chicken green curry for lunch, they really call them 7x for a reason. after deseeding these 5 fellas and washing hands, i must have inadvertently spread some capsaicin along my fingers. pain was rather unpleasant for a few hours. never deseed these beasts without gloves.

jaranda

the jaranda peppers are one of the varieties used to make pimentón de la vera (bittersweet kind). their introduction in the area goes back to the XVI century, when monks from the yuste monastery started cultivation from seeds brought from the americas.

dewitt's help

dave dewitt, editor of fiery foods and #1 chilli guru, has joined the quest for de siete caldos by kindly including the following request in his weekly newsletter:

"--Here's a chile mystery question. WK, writing from Spain, asks if the image below, a photo of 'Chile Paloma' from Chiapas, Mexico, is the same variety as 'De Siete Caldos', a Chiapan chile so hot that it can spice up 7 bowls of soup. I simply don't know the answer to this obscure question. Do any of you chileheads out there know? If so, email me here."

are these de siete caldos?

a while ago i found a reference for a mexican chilli called "de siete caldos" (seven broths) "named for the fact that just one is enough to season seven pots of soup...". my curiosity was awoken as i wondered if there was a relation with the trinidadian 7pod. googling around i found some interesting snippets of information, such as that for instance in guatemala they refer rocotos as "siete caldos" and that in quetzaltenango they prepare chirmol (a guatemalan sauce) with a mixture of coban, serrano, siete caldos, chiltepe, jalapeño, and other chillies, combined with tomato, cilantro and onion. nice!!
yesterday i got a copy of a mexican book entitled capsicum y cultura: la historia del chilli (capsicum and culture: chilli history) by janet long-solís. there is an annex with a chilli dictionary, which contains the following entries:

chile siete caldos. (chiapas) c.annuum. consumo verde y seco. de forma triangular, de color verde claro con manchas moradas. muy picante (green and dry consumption. of triangular shape, light green colour with purple patches. very spicy)
chile paloma. (chiapas) véase chile siete caldos (see chile siete caldos)

this time google provided a hit in a photo album page (desobediencia art gallery), where a chiapan traveller pictured a few bowls of paloma chiles. are these de siete caldos?

jalapeños

despite the wide range of chilli varieties grown this year, there is nothing that beats a good corked mexican jalapeño pepper.