What pods can you buy at your local markets?

Bicycle808

Bicycle808

Just curious, what can you buy in-person at markets in your area?  I'm interested in both fresh and dried pods.  Sometimes, i feel kinda blessed b/c i can get my grimy paws on a decent variety of different chiles, but then i realize that i don't have much basis for comparison.  If I'm being honest, I'm not even entirely sure what exactly i'm looking at sometimes, at the Asian Food Market and the H-Mart, where the labels can be either generic (eg, "sweet pepper") or cryptic ("Hot Jamcain Papper" <sic>)...
 
So, i;m tying to get a sense of what is available in other ppl's areas.  Feel free to gloat about how good you got it, or to whine about your struggles.  Either way, I'm curious to know....
 
Asian market has Thai chiles and a few other Asian favorites in every way you can imagine.  Regular grocery has habs of various sort as their hottest, but they at least import the good ones from Yucatan region because they've figured out there are a ton of Mexicans here who will clean them out immediately when the Hecho en Mexico batches show up.  Always piles of fresh jalapenos and serranos year round.  Usually habs, too.  A lot of sweet and mild on the shelves, but those come and go through the year as available.  Hippie food markets like Whole Foods (Amazon Foods?) don't have much more variety than the average Wal-Mart, which always struck me as odd.  I figured hipsters would demand more.
 
Farmer's market generally has a lot of the same, but fresher and sometimes gargantuan huge.  I saw Hungarian Wax Peppers one time that you could have clubbed someone to death with.  Most of the folks who grow superhots appear to keep them to themselves or can't sell enough to make it worth their trip to market, I'm guessing.  People tell me I should sell some of mine at market, but I'm like "that would require a surplus and I dunno what that looks like".  :D
 
In Quebec, Canada, it is starting to be pretty common to see Jalapenos. Many popular supermarkets also sometimes have Thai Chili, and Habaneros. I have seen on rare occasions some ghost peppers in a Provigo (People in Quebec will know what it is), but it didnt last very long. And, to be honest, i doubt they were real ghost pepper, as they had a habanero'ish look. But they had the heat.
 
peppamang said:
Typically your usual sweet peppers, jalapeno, serrano, poblano, sometimes they have long hots, and every once in a while they have habaneros but they're always grassy and horrible. 
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This is my experience as well
 
Bells: Green Orange Red, Poblano and Serrano occassionally, Jalapeno and habanero (no problems with the habaneros, we've been getting some really huge ones at Kroger recently for some reason) and I've seen long peppers that remind me of asian hot peppers but on second thought might be Basque Fryers. Small sweet peppers are available as part of vegetable trays usually too.
 
I've seen more variety at farmers markets, but, and organic farmers please forgive me, I'm always wary because they all smell strongly of manure.
 
Pretty much anything that isn't rare or baccatums. Quite a few are mislabeled. Many of them get really pricey..like nearly $20/lb for some of the supers. One Mexican market has Manzano for around $5/lb which isnt too terribly bad considering i cant find them fresh anywhere else.
 
What kills me though are the huge numbers of just really awful jalapenos. I mean no heat and poor flavor. Even the Mexican markets are spotty. Fresh Thyme market has been the only one that gets in good jalapenos and they are cheap. One market gets in Aji Dulce BUT they are never ripe. What a waste, the flavor is blah at best.
 
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Hit or miss at all my local supermarkets but here are some pix....
 
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Edit... Jals - Serrano's - Pablano's - Italian (Long, green,ridgy things) - and a few others almost always available.
 
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FRESH: several colors of Bell peppers, Jalapenos (green), Serranos (green), occasionally Fresnos (red), occasionally Anaheim (green),occasionally Poblano (green), occasionally wax peppers (cream/light yellow),rarely shishitos (green)
 
DRIED: De Arbol, Ancho, Guajillo, Chipotle morita & meco, Pequin, Cascabel, Puya
 
Wow, NECM! That's a pretty decent selection for New England! All we have here are (green) jalapeños, bells, poblanos, Anaheims, and the most pathetic looking (most of the time rotted) pale, half green orange Habs. I saw Fresnos ONCE.

We do have some dried stuff though. Anchos, pasillas, guajillos, Ghosts (new here), and Habs

That looks like a 12 pack(ish) of Scotch Bonnets for under $2?! I'd be all over that! What stupermarket is that?
 
I'm gonna try to compile some pics.... I thought i had it pretty good, but some of you seem to have things really nice.  I just feel blessed that i got like a 40 minute drive to get excellent, very fresh bonnets for cheap.  Of course, that's seasonal, but for all i know, they got'm back in-stock now....
 
***EDIT** I typed "4" but meant to type "40"--- i'm about 30 miles south of Trenton...
 
Fresh I can find your typical pablanos, jalapenos, some times bhuts, habaneros, thai, rocoto, manzano, serrano ect. 
 
Dried there's a pretty good selection. Pasilla, ancho, guajillo, padron, pequin, bunch of  others I haven't tried. 
 
D3monic said:
These are all moldy and gross but i'm sure they were good at one point 
 
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I bought some Red Bonnets from the Asian Food Market last year that were moldy and gross like that, b/c they were a deep red color but had a real nice tam-o-shanter 3 lobe bonnet-shape to'm... i didn't eat any, but i saved seeds from the pods that weren't too moldy and i'm growing out a few plant from those seeds this year.  They smelled "right" while i was cuttin'm up, but i didn't want to eat'm, b/c of the mold.  Some of the pods had the seeds all blacked out and nasty, but a surprising number of the seeds looked fine and, sure enough, they did germinate for me.  See if the pods grow true, i guess....
 
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