The history of Chile in New Mexico
The history of chiles in New Mexico is as colorful and varied as the fruit itself, peppered with imaginative stories of how the Land of Enchantment established its unique Chilean cuisine. From traditional dishes like enchiladas, tamales, gorditas, and red chile marinated pork, to more recent additions like green chile cheeseburgers, there’s a reason New Mexico honors the chile as a state symbol.
Archaeological evidence reveals that chili peppers have been used internally in the Americas for 6,000 years, originating around the South American equator. The birds are probably responsible for bringing them north. Birds not only lack the receptors that detect the heat of chili peppers, they also don’t digest the seeds, making them a perfect transportation system for spreading chili peppers around the world. The chili plant also plays its own role. The heat of the fruit deters animals except birds from eating them, and birds can only pluck the peppers from the plant when the fruit is ripe and the seeds are ready to propagate.
The native peoples of the Caribbean were already using chili in their cooking when Christopher Columbus arrived. The heat of the fruit reminded Columbus of black pepper, and it was Columbus who added the “pepper” appendage to the chili. Columbus was smart enough to take the burning fruit with him to Spain. At the time, black peppercorns were in such high demand that some countries used them as currency.
Exactly how chiles ended up in New Mexico is disputed, but one thing is certain: the Pueblo natives of New Mexico have a long history of growing the fruit. The state’s unique chili cooking style evolved from the merging of native and Spanish populations.
The chili plants themselves are members of the nightshade family, Solanaceae. Many members of the Solanaceae family originated in the Americas, including potatoes, tomatoes, and tobacco. The compound that makes chili peppers hot is capsaicin, made up of seven alkaloids or capsaicinoids. Three components cause the rapid bite at the back of the palate. Two cause the slow burn on the tongue.
Chili heat is measured in Scoville units, named for Wilbur Scoville, the chemist who devised the heat test in 1912. The test involves mixtures of water and chili that are increasingly diluted until the tester no longer feels the burn. . The Scoville number, given in multiples of 100, represents how many times the mixture had to be diluted.
New Mexico State University in Las Cruces has long been a center for scientific study of chili peppers. In the early 1900s, university horticulturist Dr. Fabián García introduced a new variety of pepper, New Mexico No. 9, which revolutionized the national pepper market. Reliably hot and uniform in size, the chili has largely replaced the traditional landrace.
Dr. Garcia went on to cultivate other popular New Mexico chili varieties, including the NuMex Big Jim, recorded in the Guinness Book of World Records as the longest chili ever grown, measuring 13.5 inches. The university’s Chile Pepper Institute has an extensive chili garden. The popular tourist attraction of Las Cruces is open to the public throughout the year.
New Mexico leads the nation in the production of hot peppers. Twenty percent of the chiles grown in the state are sold as fresh produce. The state’s commercial chili cultivation includes red and green chili peppers and jalapeños, as well as paprika and cayenne. After processing, New Mexico’s annual crop of chiles is worth $240 million.