No, I’m not one of those numbnuts who tries to outdo people with hot pepper duals. But, I grew up with jalapeños, I eat them whenever I have any kind of meat and virtually any chicken dish. It just doesn’t seem right to eat land animal flesh without one.
Now, some have more flavour than others and flavour increases usually increase the heat, too. Note: this doesn’t hold true with all peppers, but it has always been my experience with jalapeños.
It’s Winter, my own plants are dormant, so I bought some at Albertson’s. Good looking guys. Firm, dark in color, smooth skin, smelled decent. Bit into one and it was like celery. Nothing. No flavour, no bite at all. The smell was exactly the same cut as uncut. (The smell should increase a lot when you cut or bite into them.)
What is this “sunshine” you speak of? Oklahoma must be above the Artic Circle, we haven’t had any sunshine in days, weeks even it seems.
But, I had assumed a lot of our Winter produce came from the Valley. (Rio Grande Valley)
I ought to try an indoor experiment with solar lamps…
They are just dumbing it down for the masses. I just bought a jar of another brand recently and they taste just fine. People’s idea of “hot” is wildly different. I grew up in Louisiana with a Texas mother so I am pretty familiar with what is hot and not. However, I agree with you about this extreme hot craze. It is just stupid. I have a jar of Mad Dog Inferno hot sauce that I bought at the grocery store. They really shouldn’t carry that stuff in a regular grocery store. It needs to be behind the counter somewhere. I put half a drop in my homemade bowl of chilli last week and it almost ruined it. I could still eat it but it distracted me from watching TV or talking to my wife. I keep it around for when my family visits. One of them will invariably start talking about how they can handle any hot stuff so I just quietly give them a cracker of that and tell them to take a bite. End of discussion.
Anyway, my wife’s uncle tells the same stories over and over at every single function. For some reason, I impressed the crap out of him when I once explained that Tobasco sauce isn’t that hot and then demonstrated by turning my head back, opening my mouth, and drinking half of the bottle. That is a party trick that lots of people can do but it is cool because so many people act like you just drank nuclear waste.
Ew!
J/K - Yeah, I put those on nachos and stuff. For meat meals, I prefer them fresh, unpickled. When something is really hot, I call it Stupid Hot. Pain doesn;t taste good. It does surprise me at times, tho, when friends freak out about my peppers. You do get used to the normal pepper heat. The extra, extra stuff is a niche market item for idiots.
I agree that lately Jalapenos have gotten weaker. They used to be much better, but when places like Subway started carrying them in tasteless areas, people developed a weaker crappy jalapeno(it’s all waxy, and lacks fruity flavor) for people to eat.
Oh well I always liked the flavor of Serranos better anyway, and they are heat eqivalent to the old jalapenos. Nobody better start messing with them.
I bought some fresh jalapenos to make Mexican cornbread. When I was chopping them up, I tasted a little piece of one, and it wasn’t any hotter than a green pepper. Hell, I’ve grown green peppers hotter than that jalapeno was, in fact.
Planted the greenies too close to the jalapenos and cayennes one year…
Actually, you can blame the Aggies. Some years back they began breeding “mild” peppers, with the “TAM jalapeño” being the first. I seem to remember that the idea supposedly was to produce a pepper with all the flavor of a jalapeño with much less heat. For, like, wimpy yankees I guess
I can’t find a link to the any of the original press releases or such, it’s been too long (back in the mid to late 90’s), but this is a Q&A page the mentions them in passing.
Yeah, I read in Rick Bayless’s cookbook that American agriculture has bred all the heat out of the jalapeno pepper. Do like wolfman suggests and switch to serranos, or you could even start experimenting with habaneros. Habaneros are hotter than hell, but I like their fruity taste.
Worse than bland jalapenos, the fools at Texas A&M have now come out with a “mild” habenero pepper. There was a article about it a couple months back that I saw in the NYT. The end is nigh, indeed.
Sadly, both habaneros and serranos are very spotty in availabilty around here. I grew them during the summer, tho, along with my jalapeños and chiles piquines. (So, thanks, but I am already well aware of the other peppers. )
I guess I’m just going to have to experiment with indoor growing. I can’t bear bland peppers.
btw, tell the Aggies they failed. Those peppers they’re sending us HAVE NO FLAVOUR! I can deal with less heat if I have to, but I NEED flavour.
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