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.
I've never heard of this one....where is it from? Yucatan Sunshine?
Oh heck --- I work the other way around - I grow bells next to the habaneros...cross pollination gives the bells a nice kick without being killer hot.
Don't try it with hot cherry peppers and habaneros - those will kill you.
Take a selection of habs and your other favourite peppers (Georgia greens, aka fingerhots, are excellent here btw), remove stems, mince in a food processor along with 1 clove garlic for each 3-4 oz. of peppers (some of us, ahem, use a bit more garlic...(w!)). Remove into an old, rinsed pickle or olive jar. Add 1 tbsp salt for each 6 oz. of peppers. Fill to just covered with white vinegar. Optionally, add minced onion, prepared horseradish, and/or liquid smoke (delicious!) to your particular taste. Close, shake vigorously. Refrigerate for at least 24 hours (a week is better) to allow flavours to blend.
Dynamite salsa...no fumes, either (g!) Does NOT spoil, ever, if kept refrigerated. Can be warmed before serving if desired.
Muy picante y muy bueno, amigo!
HEEEELARIOUS!!!
We grow them just for ornanemtation...even a small slice of these puppies will peel the paint off the Dodge...
Yeah, you can google it and find it pretty easily, but I havent seen it in stores. A buddy of mine had some at his house and I tried it, it is hot, but he took about a tablespoon and a half and mixed it with a can of refried beans, and it was fantastic stuff. Its a funny mix of ingredients, with carrots being one of the main one, but you should look for it if you like habaneros...JFK
When I was in high school (boarding), we got a movie every weekend. Part of the pleasure of this was eating snacks from home. Mine were the little yellow hot pepper "pickles." Seemed like everybody in my dorm had their jars or pickled peppers. Today, I can hardly stand to eat them unless I "work up" to it. Oh. Poblanos are yummy...Best Mexican restaurant in the area serves them. Just right.
:^)
What a weenie! Messing with perfection.
correction: In plain English, water, beer, and wine flat don't work to cool out a 'burnt'...
I love that one!!!!
We used to eat in a Thai restaurant all the time, but I couldn't handle the heat as much as my husband, so the owner always made my dishes with slightly less heat than normal. I started working there and so was eating there 5-6 times a week instead of once a week. After about 6 weeks I was able to eat the identical things the thai women would fix for themselves for lunch every day.
It got to the point my husband couldn't handle the heat I could. But within a couple of weeks after I stopped working there - I couldn't handle the heat any longer.
Sorry, Freebird. Beer will undoubtedly have its own salubrious effect on one's outlook, but it won't do a thing to dissolve the capsaicin. 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. A swig of buttermilk will fix you (or anyone) right up.
Don't ever touch any sensitive part of the body after dealing with any hot pepper!
My husband was helping me cut and seed peppers a few years ago for some dish I was making and needed to releive himself...........need I say anymore.
Lemon or lime juice and salt rubbed on the hands before washing with soap does wonders to kill the effects on the skin.
I've never heard about the tomato part - but I do know about the salt.
Put salt on your tongue and just hold it there as long as you can - spit it out and then rinse. Repeat as necessary, but do not swallow the salted saliva.
A mild habanero makes as much sense as a solar powered flashlight
My 16 y.o. daughter and I have tears streaming... we can relate. It's been a LONNNG time since we've had such a good laugh!
A lot of the hab sauces are cut with carrots and or mangos - for some reason those flavors bind well and while they cut the heat, don't cut the smoky flavor of the habs.
My Mom taught me to take a strand of hair and rub it over your eye if you get hot stuff in it........kinda crazy but it works for me........your eye should be closed......
I ate a habanero once too. Quickly starting sweating out of every pore and nearly ceased breathing. My friends couldn't stop laughing, the bums!
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