Fennel Salad with Red Peppers
Cream of Roasted Pimiento Soup
Cauliflower with Red Pepper Soubise Sauce
Mashed Potatoes with Chipotle Butter
Peperonata
Your Choice Stuffed Peppers
Cooking the Dish Chili
Broken Arrow Ranch Chili
Black Bean and Chicken Chili
Garden Chili
Babyback Ribs with Ancho Chilies
Classic Gumbo
Roasted Pepper Garden Lasagna
Golden Chicken Curry with Garam Masala
Appendices
Appendix A: Planting and Maintenance
Appendix B: Pest and Disease Control
Resources
Acknowledgments
Here are two Italian heirloom peppers used as frying peppers. The yellow one is ‘Corno di Toro Giallo,’ and the red, ‘Corno di Toro Rosso.’
the edible
pepper
garden
As I approached the fairgrounds, I asked myself how I was possibly going to eat all that chili and not burn up. This was my first chili cook-off, and I was a judge. How much chili does a judge eat? Do the folks make it really hot? I like spicy food, but I don’t have a mouth made of asbestos like some people I know. I had been to wine and produce tastings, but never a chili tasting. How could I possibly clear my mouth from one bite to the next?
I was early for the judging because I wanted to talk with the entrants about what they put in their chilis. As I entered the cook-off area, I was surprised at the festival atmosphere. The lawn was surrounded by dozens of carnival-type booths, all decked out. A couple of middle-aged ladies were cooking away in a booth labeled The Hot Flashes. On the sign for another booth was a giant can of Hormel chili with the international prohibited symbol across it—the Hormel Busters, of course. There were the Heart Burners, Chili’s Angels, Rattlesnake Rick’s, Earthquake Chili, and even a group dressed in camouflage garb proclaiming their chili Rambo Red. Hundreds of visitors were wandering around getting pointers, tasting the chilies, and buying drinks and mouth-watering bowls of chili. What fun!
Peppers sweet and hot come in all shapes and colors.
When it came time to judge the chili, I joined twenty or so other judges in a hall. There, the officials explained the procedure. Cups of chili were laid out on a long table with only a number to identify each one. Between all the cups were trays of soda crackers and cut-up pieces of celery. (So that’s how you clear your palate, I thought.) There were also a few bowls of sour cream, used to put out the fire if a chili was too hot. And, of course, there was beer. For guidelines, we were told to ask ourselves first if we would want to eat a whole bowl of this chili. We were to look for depth of flavor—a lasting one—and a chili that wasn’t too salty and that certainly wasn’t sweet. We were to seek a traditional taste. And above all, we were not to talk or make faces. The only communication allowed was a warning to our fellow judges if we ran across a “killer chili”—one that was too hot.
Chilis Angels (above) otter some of their chili to folks attending a San Jose cook-off.
It would be nice to say I had such a sophisticated palate that I picked all three winners, but in fact I liked only one of the winning chilies. It amazed me that most of the chilies were fairly mild, that they varied greatly, but that the winners were quite similar and, furthermore, very salty. The winning chilies were dark red-brown, full of flavor, and smooth in texture.
How did this Yankee, who grew up never eating anything spicier than a gingersnap, wind up as a chili judge? Like many other Americans, for years I had ignored chili and chili peppers of all types. But as my tastes changed and I was exposed to more and more hot Mexican and Asian dishes, I gradually started to enjoy spicy foods. I even began making chili using a commercial chili powder. The result was good, but when my husband brought back separate chili spices from Texas and I started making chili with selected varieties of ground chilies, what a revelation! Chili peppers weren’t simply hot; they actually had complex and varying flavors. This appreciation of fresh ground chilies led naturally to the next step: growing and cooking with fresh green and red chilies of many different varieties. A whole new world had opened up.
This arrangement of peppers to the right was harvested at the Kendall Jackson Winery trial gardens in Santa Rosa, California. It includes over twenty varieties including ‘Yellow Cayennes,’ ‘Hot Cherries,’ ‘Poblanos,’ ‘Purple Beauty,’ pimentos, and many varieties of jalapeños.
all about peppers
For years, Americans were but a ripening away from great red, yellow, and orange bell peppers. Peppers were harvested in their unripe green stage because it was more efficient for farmers. Now we can choose from a rainbow of peppers and they are oh-so-much sweeter and juicier.
All peppers, both hot and sweet, are perennials in the genus Capsicum and, along with relatives such as tomatoes and potatoes, are in the Solanaceae family. Peppers originated in subtropical areas of South America and were eventually spread, probably by birds, over South and Central America. Over time they were transported by people to the far corners of the earth and quickly assimilated into many cuisines, often substituting for black pepper. Over the centuries, countless varieties of peppers have been bred to meet the tastes of many different cultures.
There are five species of peppers used for food, but the vast majority under cultivation today are Capsicum annuum, which includes both sweet and hot types. A few popular exceptions are C. chinense, which includes the notoriously hot habañero, and C. frutescens, which includes tabasco and some of the Asian hot peppers. There are also several wild species. In fact, chili peppers still grow wild in many areas of the southwestern United States through parts of Central America and are harvested by the native peoples there.
Sweet Peppers
Sweet peppers evolved from wild (hot) peppers and were bred for their vegetable characteristics,
