On my grocery shopping foray this afternoon, I stopped by our eclectic little greengrocer (Flagstaff Farmers Market) here in Flagstaff. They're awesome and carry lots of great stuff. They are known to carry wild-harvested foods like pinyon nuts as they become available and people bring them in. So today I go in and head over to the dried chile section. Oh, you ought to see it! It's a place of beauty, folks! Bulk bins of Ancho, Jalapeno, Cayenne, New Mexico, and Chipotle powders at a price you cannot beat. Bulk bins of dried chiles. A bulk bin of whole chipotles! But, ok, so I look up and what do I see? Ziplok baggies of Chiltepins! Wild-gathered Chiltepins, gathered from down in the southern part of the state. I bought a bag right away. When I got them home and smelled them, I went back and got a SECOND bag!!!
The smell is deliciously, fruity and spicy with a strong fresh red chile scent. Which is pretty intense, because these are dried, yet smell like cut open fresh red chiles with a strong fruity-spicy undertone. The taste? Simply nirvana. Wonderfully hot, but delightful flavor. Strong, rich chile flavor. I cannot describe it enough to do it justice. I garnered the seeds out of a few of them and bagged them up for Spring planting. I don't know if they'll grow here, but I am greatly hoping they will. I can garner more seeds from these. Fascinating---each Chiltepin has about six or seven seeds in it. You can definitely see how this chile is the progenitor of what we know as chiles. The thing is very attractive to behold. A shiny, red berry. Birds would see this quite some distance away and that was the chile's evolutionary strategy. Being as birds cannot taste capsaicin, they could eat the entire Chiltepin and transport quite a few seeds quite a distance from the parent plant, thus spreading itself while reducing competition for water resources in the parent plants' area. A bird the size of a Stellar's Jay could probably eat quite a few Chiltepins.
I'll be able to glean quite a few seeds as I am eating these Chiltepins. I should probably go buy another bag soon. Very soon! I'll be writing at length on these Chiltepins on my blog. I've already posted there about this find.
The smell is deliciously, fruity and spicy with a strong fresh red chile scent. Which is pretty intense, because these are dried, yet smell like cut open fresh red chiles with a strong fruity-spicy undertone. The taste? Simply nirvana. Wonderfully hot, but delightful flavor. Strong, rich chile flavor. I cannot describe it enough to do it justice. I garnered the seeds out of a few of them and bagged them up for Spring planting. I don't know if they'll grow here, but I am greatly hoping they will. I can garner more seeds from these. Fascinating---each Chiltepin has about six or seven seeds in it. You can definitely see how this chile is the progenitor of what we know as chiles. The thing is very attractive to behold. A shiny, red berry. Birds would see this quite some distance away and that was the chile's evolutionary strategy. Being as birds cannot taste capsaicin, they could eat the entire Chiltepin and transport quite a few seeds quite a distance from the parent plant, thus spreading itself while reducing competition for water resources in the parent plants' area. A bird the size of a Stellar's Jay could probably eat quite a few Chiltepins.
I'll be able to glean quite a few seeds as I am eating these Chiltepins. I should probably go buy another bag soon. Very soon! I'll be writing at length on these Chiltepins on my blog. I've already posted there about this find.
Mmmm...sounds good!!!!
As many Gary Paul Nabhan books as I've read, you'd think I would know that everyone knows all Chiltepins are wild, LOL! I cannot get over how delicious these Chiltepins are!!!! 