A cool idea: Taming the habanero

New York Times ^ | November 21, 2004 P | Ralph Blumenthal

[Paleo Conservative]

WESLACO, Tex., Nov. 18 - It's a burning issue for some hot-pepper lovers: Whatever possessed Kevin M. Crosby to create the mild habanero?

For Dr. Crosby, a plant geneticist at the Texas A&M Agricultural Experiment Station here near the Mexican border, the answer is simple: "I'm not going to take away the regular habanero. You can still grow and eat that, if you want to kill yourself."

But for those who prize the fieriest domesticated Capsicum for its taste and health-boosting qualities, Dr. Crosby and the research station in the Rio Grande Valley have developed and patented the TAM Mild Habanero, with less than half the bite of the familiar jalapeño (which A&M scientists also previously produced in a milder version).

With worldwide pepper consumption on the rise, according to industry experts, the new variety - a heart-shaped nugget bred in benign golden yellow to distinguish it from the alarming orange original, the common Yucatan habanero - is beginning to reach store shelves, to the delight of processors and the research station, which stands to earn unspecified royalties if the new pepper catches on.

"I love it," said Josh Ruiz, a local farmer whose pickers this week filled some 200 boxes of the peppers to be sold to grocers for about $35 a box. "It yields good and I'm able to eat it." As for the Yucatan habanero, he said, "My stomach just can't take it."

By comparison, if a regular jalapeño scores between 5,000 and 10,000 units on the Scoville scale of pepper hotness based on the amount of the chemical capsaicin (cap-SAY-sin), and a regular habanero averages around 300,000 to 400,000 units, A&M's mild version registers a tepid 2,300, or barely one-hundredth of its coolest formidable namesake. A bell pepper, by the way, scores zero.

Not everyone hails the breakthrough. Dr. Crosby, 33, a native Texan and a distant relative of the crooner Bing, said "chili pepper fanatics" have called with rude questions about what he was thinking and why he was wasting his time. A Mexican voiced complete bewilderment. Why, he asked Dr. Crosby, would you want a habanero that's not hot?

Dr. Crosby said he sympathized. He had, after all, seen Mayans in the Yucatan eating their way through plates of habaneros dipped in salt. "I've heard it said it's addictive," he said.

But he said most people should not try this at home, not even with the most potent antidote at the ready, ice cream. (Milk is second best.)

The center's director, Jose M. Amador, said people in Mexico had called wondering if A&M was out to "ruin" the habanero, and asking, "What are you, crazy?" There was even a move afoot in Mexico, he said, to trademark the Yucatan habanero in the same way, say, that the French protect Champagne and Cognac, but he shrugged off its prospects.

Actually, Dr. Amador said, he came from Havana, for which the pepper is named, but had never eaten it there, Cuban cuisine not being known for its spiciness. With the same confusion, Dr. Crosby said, the habanero's scientific name became Capsium Chinense, although the pepper undoubtedly reached China via the tropical Americas.

Last week, Dr. Crosby was among 225 scientists, growers and processors who gathered at the 17th International Pepper Conference in Naples, Fla. Business was booming, a conference announcement said: "In recent years, interest and demand for peppers has increased dramatically worldwide, and peppers are no longer considered a minor crop in the global market."

Specialty peppers, including hot peppers, were a particularly fast-growing part of the market, perhaps increasing by 5 percent a year, said Gene McAvoy, the conference organizer and a regional extension agent at the University of Florida in Labelle.

Dr. Crosby, who delivered a paper on breeding peppers for enhanced health through plant chemicals like carotenoids, flavonoids and ascorbic acid, said capsaicin was being studied as a stroke preventive. Other chemicals in peppers were potent antioxidants and protected against macular degeneration.

The process to produce a more palatable habanero, he said, began with cross-breeding a regular hot variety with germ plasm from a wild heatless pepper from Bolivia. "We took pollen from the hot to pollinate the heatless to create a hybrid," he said. The hybrid was then self-pollinated, fertilized with its own pollen, to inbreed desired qualities and then, Dr. Crosby said, "backcrossed to the hot to recover more of its genes for flavor." That was repeated for eight generations, or four years at two growing seasons a year, to produce the TAM Mild Habanero. He was breeding it in yellow but could also produce it in white and red, he said.

"It's a pretty fruit," said Dr. Crosby, taking a bite and chewing without flinching. "It's got the flavor but it doesn't kill you."

Michael Stravato for
The New York Times

Kevin M. Crosby, plant geneticist
at Texas A&M's Agricultural
Experiment Station, inspects
his new mild habanero pepper crop.

[nomad]

The secret to putting out the fire is to keep sipping milk-no foolin, milk. It seems that milk has something called casein that will neutralize capsacin.

[Long Cut]

The top 3 peppers on SAJ's list are varieties of habanero. They are THE hottest peppers on Earth. In fact, the RED SAVINA HABANERO is THE hottest of the hot, as it hits 500,000 on the Scoville scale.

Food Network had a show a couple of years ago about the hottest peppers, and the Savina was featured. Of course, one lunatic was shown eating one, raw. He was a confirmed "chili-head" who had eaten them many times over the years. He broke out in an instant, pouring sweat, and his eyes teared.

[nomad]

Man, I love HOT peppers but I guess this is good for people like my wife who can`t tolerate too much.

[Americanchild]

Hehe! No spinach doesn't count. You can cook mustard greens I suppose, but they're good raw.

OK you have several months until spring planting. Get you some mustard seeds ( the 'frilly' variety is hotter) and plant you a good plot. They like the cool wet season. MMMMM! Wish I had time for a garden again!

Hey! Make a salad with the mustard and hot peppers!! Give it to the locals for a laugh!!!

[MeekOneGOP]

Just pulling your leg, my FRiend!!!! Just pulling your leg.

haha! I know my friend. Thanks. And I appreciate you, too. :^D

[Gabz]

Just because of the conversation you and I have had tonight I will put in mustard next year.

You've got me intrigued. and that's the best way to get me to try something new/different whether it be cooking or in the garden.

Thank you.

[Gabz]

I love my FRiends that can take a joke!!!!

[Americanchild]

Alright! You'll like it. Now when it's big enough just pull off enough leaves to eat. The rest will keep growing and add new leaves too. The older it gets, the hotter it gets! You can keep the plants going a long time this way rather than harvesting it all at once.

Have you tried leeks? They're not hot, but still yummy!

[TexasCowboy]

"Habaneros are nice as appetizers."

Yeah, stuff 'em with cheese and throw 'em on the bar-b-que pit.
You can munch on 'em while the steaks are dying.

[Freebird Forever]

Just basic chemistry, nothing to do with being a Yankee (g!). Capsaicin and related capsaicinoids (oleoresin capsicum, in the case of habanero) are soluble only in fat, not in water or alcohol.

Check your facts again Bubba.

According to my old trusty Merck Index (10th ed. pg 243-244), capsaicin is "freely soluble in alcohol, ether, benzene, chloroform;".

This deserves repeating: Typical yankee.

[Smartaleck]

"Jalapeno beats it by far for flavor,"

I'm with you one that one. Heat aside, I don't understand at all how people think the Habinero taste good at all? Tastes bitter to me and taints food with almost a stale taste?

[SAJ]

Sorry again, Freebird. We were discussing what humans could do to reverse the 'heat' effects of capsaicin. While drinking methanol (which is what the Merck index means by alcohol) will undoubtedly dissolve any capsaicin that has not migrated transdermally, such action will also produce rather severe side effects, even to the point of requiring a trip to the ER. Bad idea.

However, unfortunately, capsaicin is only minimally soluble in alcohols heavier than methanol, e.g. ethanol, hence beer or wine. Any relief obtained from drinking beer will have occurred because of a simple 'washing-away' effect. (As an aside, pls note in general that solubility of anything in beer or wine will be but a tiny fraction of the solubility of the same substance in pure ethanol, due to 1) the small actual proportion of ethanol present and 2) the dilution of solubility effects from the presence of contaminants, typically grain or fruit flavinoids.) It didn't occur to me that you might accidentally confuse the two (who drinks methanol, after all?), else I would have written ''insoluble in ethyl alcohol''.

Here's a link to the formal chemical specification of capsaicin, as produced by a primary manufacturer.

http://www.alkalimetals.com/specs/pure_capsaicin_specs.htm

And here's a useful discussion of the practical chemistry of vanilloids in broad:

http://antoine.frostburg.edu/chem/senese/101/features/capsaicin.shtml

[Proud_texan]

You're absolutly right, dairy, the fatter the better, works very well.

It always reminds me of a very old joke about the fellow that eats hot peppers and is given ice cream to put out the fire.

The next morning he can be heard saying "Come on ice cream".

(Slightly modified for FR but you get the picture).

[Gabz]

Thanks for the tips!!!!

I've never grown leeks, but do use them in cooking!!!!

[SAJ]

Problem here is dust from the dried peppers. You can avoid the problem you describe by NOT drying the habs first; mince them undried in a closed canister food processor (e.g. Cuisinart), with whatever other chiles and other ingredients you fancy, and there you go. If you want to dry the mixture later -- in the oven, say -- spread it out on a cookie sheet and cover loosely with foil while drying. Dust thus produced will be minimal.

If your skin is more sensitive than most folks' to capsaicin, rub a mixture of skin cream and butter or vegetable oil on the exposed areas before preparation. Capsaicin is readily soluble in fats and vegetable oils, and this mixture will quite literally insulate you. If your eyes are a problem, any cheap pair of sports goggles will work; just be sure to tape over the little air vents at the side.

Plastic bags over the head? Sounds pretty kinky to me...(g!)

[MeekOneGOP]

Me too. :^D

[green iguana]

I've got the real thing drying in my kitchen

How do you get habs to dry? Chili pequins (my fav) New Mexicans and others will dry on a plate, but my habs and scotch bonnets always rot before they dry out. Do you use a dehydrator or slow oven or something?

[Gabz]

I just have the habs sitting in a straw basket which I would give a shake to every couple of days.

Another way I have dried them in the past (and almost any other chile) is to thread them using a tapestry needle and either cotton or nylon thread and hang the strings of peppers on any available hook or shelf or anything that protrudes from the wall.