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.
Hey thanks! The chart says the upper range for the Tai Reds is 100,000 and the lower range for habaneros is 100,000. Now I don't feel like such a wuss.
I dried and ground some habaneros, in the kitchen, I didn't
touch them had rubber gloves on. burnt my eyelids and face,
major heat.
2nd time put a plastic bag over the grinder, same thing, got
burnt even tho i let the powder sit before bottling.
3rd time put the plastic bag over my head, worked ok, except
they need to be bottled outdoors preferably not down wind.
my cousin calls them peppers from hell.
Sounds like worthy advice to me.
Seems all the hunters will be happy around here - because there are wild turkeys as well!!!
I am now on a mission - my husband WILL attend the required "class" to get his hunting license next year. I look at all the weaponry on the wall every day, and I know what them dang deer (and possibly turkeys) did to my garden this year........I want REVENGE!!!!!!
If not revenge, at least know that what I am eating survived because of what I grew and areally wanted to harvest.
bump
Those that have learned the hard way try to pass on the wisdom (or at least should).........I did it once myself - but only once.
hahaha! I've never tried them before. Not really interested, either.I don't know why, but my body has weird reactions to certain 'hot, spicy' stuff. For example, I can eat a mild onion on occasion that will cause the top of my head to drip with perspiration (SWEAT). It's hard to fathom what is going on. I love the spicy stuff. It just doesn't like me, it appears. :^(
"They will definitely cure a lot of problems with the digestinal tract...particularly hemorrhoids. I know for sure."
What do they do, scare the hemorrhoids away?
Just the thought...shudder...
I've got the real thing drying in my kitchen - how much doyou want me to send you?Send me as much as you would like. My Dad would LOVE it, I'm sure! I've seen steam RUSH outta his ears and sweat flow from his head, and he claims "It's not hot!" I believe him, but what a sight to behold sometimes, lol!
Regarding these Habanero peppers, he claims they ARE hot, btw. If HE says they are hot, they are hot! .....
An ice cube on the tongue puts out the fire, too.
mmmmmm good
Sacrilege
ROTFLOL!! Put a plastic bag over your head?! Hoping to speed death along, were ya??
Just pulling your leg, my FRiend!!!! Just pulling your leg.
but I understand what you are saying.
Right! No chemicals, and grown in at least a foot of rabbit manure! If you like spicy, you need some real organic mustard greens for your salads. Or make your own very hot mustard for that spicy turkey and deer your husband is going to get! I take it, you're a tad north of the Mason-Dixon line? Never had mustard greens!!! The horror!!!
LOL!!! You're dad's a good man.
That's good stuff!!!!!!!
They cauterize them.
I didn't read the article, but what good is a tame habanero..or scotch bonnet, for that matter.
A "tad" north of the Mason-Dixon line? LOL!!!!! I live in Virginia, and lived in lower Delaware (the red part) for 21 years. I left blue NYC in 1982.
All kidding aside, as much as I know I can be called a yankee carpet bagger because of my origins, I can't be called that about what I eat. Except that I've never eaten greens, mustard or otherwise....well spinach is one of my fave's but I don't think you're talking about that as a green.
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