Michael Stravato for
The New York Times
Posted on 11/21/2004 2:43:59 PM PST by 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.
S A C R I L E G E !
Texas Ping!
Jalapeno beats it by far for flavor, all it had was HEEEEAAAAATTTTT
My first thought when I read the headline was "what's the point of doing that?"
I dont know what a habenaero tastes like. you cant taste anything with all that heat!
I like jalepenos, but I can't eat habaneros. I tried one bite of one once. Anyway my stomach doesn't handle peppers and spicy food as well as it used to.
You have to be crazy to eat those super hot habanero's. A jaliino is the limit for me, and even then I don't put too much in my chilli creation. I ate some habanero on a dare once. never again. It's a pepper which keeps on giving, just when you think you've recovered from the experience, the following bowel movement will again remind you that you should never eat those things. They are great for playing tricks though.
I also like the idea --- right now I'm hooked on poblano chilis which you can eat a ton of but they don't cause you any pain. Chilis can have flavor and some bite but still be edible. It's also a myth that every Mexican likes chilis to be as hot as possible --- I've met some who won't even add onions to their food because they make it too spicy.
Afterall, it'll still be up there in the 50k's of the Scoville scale.
If you've ever just tried just the flesh (no seeds or white 'connective tissue) of a hab or 'scotch bonnet', it's a different flavor then most of the jalapeno varieties.
Habaneros have a great flavor! Try making up a batch of fresh salsa and using about 1/2 a habanero per 1-2 jalapenos (depending on taste). They are great! Also, there is a hot sauce called Yucatan Sunshine which is made with carrots and habaneros which is the best out there...JFK
But I'm just a northerner, we have weak stomachs when it comes to peppers and hot chilli creations. Most people think my Chilli is too hot. They know nothing. Southerners must have cast iron stomachs or something, my chilli would be laughed at.
"...a regular habanero averages around 300,000 to 400,000 units..."
Does anyone know how a habanero compares to one of those translucent, dark-red peppers that come in some Chinese food?
I made the mistake of biting into one of those Chinese peppers once, and it about killed me. It went nuclear in my mouth, which was not unexpected, but then the heat got into my nasal passages and finally my eyes. Every tear duct and mucus membrane that my face possessed was on red alert, and I was going through about three tissues a minute sopping up the various fluids they were producing. It was like I had been Maced.
If habaneros are hotter than these things, then they are very hot indeed.
When I read the article, my mouth started watering, so I went in and had some of my habanero salsa.
Those are pretty tame. I used to eat them when I ordered hot Chinese dishes. I avoid eating them now, because my stomach can't handle peppers the way it could when I was 18.
A million years ago, I worked at Harlingen AFB when my hsuband was in service. One of my office mates kept jars of jalapenos in her desk and snacked on them all day. You think that's what turned her hair fiery red?
A million years later, I find that the hot stuff irritates my tum. A mild habanero might be fine now. But back then, I got into the jalapeno thing, and could eat more than the big strong AF guys, some TX natives. We actually had contests. Imagine that!
Mace is mild compared to those things. I grow jalipino peppers which always come out extremely hot, just handling them and accidently wiping dust out of your eye will burn like mad. Great in a chili especially if you have a cold and are conjested. Loosens you right up.
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