Word: chiles
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...STYLISH, WELL-HEELED CROWD packing the aisles of the second Santa Fe Wine and Chile Fiesta knew a hot trend when they saw it -- and tasted it. Between sips of Chardonnay, about 2,000 "chileheads" dressed in pepper-print shirts, skirts and ties spent four days sampling chile dishes, taking "chile tours" of the New Mexican countryside and listening to experts like Paul ("Mr. Chile") Bosland dispense advice on how to grow just about every member of the family, from the mild-mannered bell pepper to the Mexican habanero, the world's hottest. The chile mania "has really turned into...
America's infatuation with the once humble (and often shunned) chile has been fueled by a proliferation everywhere of Mexican and nouvelle Tex-Mex restaurants over the past decade and a growing public appetite for new flavor sensations. Last year sales of salsa, whose main ingredient is chile, surpassed catsup by $40 million, making it the country's most popular condiment. The peppers are popping up in such mainstream products as Le Menu "Santa Fe style" frozen dinners and McDonald's chicken fajitas. Manufacturers are packaging chile pastas, chile jams and jellies, chile catsup, chile-spiced mustards, peanuts, potato chips...
Inspired by -- and also instigating -- this heat wave are such adventurous and widely known chefs as Mark Miller of Washington's Red Sage and Josefina Howard of New York City's Rosa Mexicano, who regularly experiment with chile- flavored dishes like duck tamales with herb salsa, roasted oysters with green jalapeno strips and chile-laced chocolate cake. Amateur cooks have joined the craze with the help of more than 20 cookbooks devoted exclusively to hot and spicy Mexican, Thai and Cajun foods. Mail-order outlets like Hot Stuff in New York City, Mo Hotta Mo Betta Co. in San Luis...
...something" that turns the human system into a four-alarm fire is capsaicin, a chemical concentrated in the veins and seeds of the chile pod. A member of the nightshade family (as are tomatoes, potatoes and tobacco), the chile pepper is believed to have originated in South America. Incas and Mayans prized it for its vibrant flavor and curative powers, prescribing peppers for ailments as diverse as arthritis, epilepsy and the common cold. Pepper seeds carried back to Europe by Christopher Columbus eventually found their way to China, Korea, Thailand and India -- the last of which today leads all other...
Among Americans, the most popular pepper is the innocuous bell, followed by the pimento, used in making paprika and stuffing olives, and the green jalapeno, common in nachos and green salsas. Chile connoisseurs also extol the virtues of such lesser-known varieties as the smoky chipotle, the fleshy red- brown poblano, the piquant pequin and the sweet-tasting habanero, which is famed, perhaps notorious, for its pure, blazing fire. In New Mexico, the chile-growing capital of the U.S., the longish local variety is often served stuffed with cheese or as a topping for hamburgers and pizza...