I guess big advertising really works. I grew Joe E. Parker last year and couldn't give them away. This year I've had 4 people ask me about Hatch chiles and I didn't grow any this year. Go figure.

I wish people would ship them up to new england. You get them so low priced. Also no one will roast them up here.

In my next lifetime I am coming back as a person living in new mexico just so I can get all those chiles so easy.

New Mexico is Chile Nirvana.

"I wish people would ship them up to new england."

If there's a demand, there's usually a supply.

Here's one of several.

Here is a link that might be useful: New Mexico Chili

Our Safeway has them for $0.77 per pound. Question: They are advertising these as "Hatch Chili Peppers". What exactly are they? I am growing NuMex Heritage 6-4, Joe E. Parker, and Big Jim. I know Hatch is a Town in NM, but I didn't think it was a "generic" variety.

Raybo

shebear: as far as I know- there is no ONE particular type/variety/seed of chile that is 'Hatch' chile .... just ANY chile grown in Hatch, NM we refer to 'Hatch' chile but it can be several varieties grown by the many growers in Hatch. I've forgotten what the name of the Hatch farm was that was on the label of the bag we got for a relative last Fall x Hatch nor if the brand of chile was even on the label. The Chile Institute @ NM State U.in Las Cruces, NM has developed most of the newer chile varieties as well as now bringing out some of the seed of the old NM chile varieties to grow again & we did purchase & grew some of the NM 6 seed variety this year. 'Biker Billy' Jals, the newer strain of 'Big Jim' & 'Barker' we grow also. For fun, we grow a few plants of the Bhut & grind for powder for those folks who say 'I can eat the hottest chile grown'... OK?!

As for demand- a few years ago a person x Hatch took a truck load of chile & a roaster to Austin, Tx. area & was selling it like mad along the highway our relatives there said! Now it is available in stores there but quite pricy they say.

Raybo: you are correct-any of the chile varieties x Hatch,NM ( a town/area in the SW part of the State) are being called "Hatch" chile & there is no specific generic 'Hatch' variety of chile as far as I know. How do you like the NuMex Heritage 6? we grew it for the first time this year for me as I don't like the real hot chile. The new seed sold by NM State U. in Las Cruces, NM of the Big Jim is supposed to be hotter & more consistancy of the 'hotness' in the same plant (we thought the old variety varied a lot on the same plant). Your Safeway for 77 cents/lb. wasn't too bad if that included roasting? By end of season here last year the 30 lb. bags were selling $12/bag & that included roasting. We grow about 200 lbs. here in the City usually so hubby built his own roaster like the stores here have- but manual turning instead, using the propane.

Other areas of NM grow & sell chile ( I saw some x Lemitar, NM this year) & have heard a rumor that Mexico is growing, shipping & selling falsely labeled "Hatch" grown chile up here!

Good luck with your crop!!

Central Market is roasting them thru the end of August.
I bought about 3 # each of mild and hot @ $2.23 a pound.
I plan to freeze them, but the mild may not make it to the freezer. Whole roasted peppers are going in my eggs, pasta
and topping Boursin cheese slathered on Sour Dough bread.

i'm from albuquerque originally, been in pheonix for 8 years and i've gotta tell u there's nothing like the chile back home the stuff we get her just isn't the same. my dad freezes it and brings me about a sack a year of hatch extra hot

hellbound: yes, before our Austin, Tx. relatives could buy the chile x Hatch there the past couple years, we used to send a box of the fresh via Fed Ex and the whole building there smelled of the good chile aroma as so many others were sending chile elsewhere also!

Which farm in Hatch does your Dad get the chile x Hatch? Smith's grocery I see has the chile this week x 'Young Gun' farms in Hatch, NM for sale but the variety wasn't named. The X-tra hot may be the 'Barker' variety. Funny how so many people not from New Mexico believe Hatch chile is really a variety of it's own! Must be the combination of soil, rainfall, altitude, heat, etc. that gives that chile such a good flavor!

vieja,

I don't know if you are associated with any of the Hatch growers or not, but the "Branding" of random NuMex Peppers is only causing confusion in our local markets at to "What is a Hatch Pepper?"

Ads this week from Nob Hill, Lucky, and Safeway:

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Unlike the very successful Vidalia Onion Growers in Georgia where there is a single "generic" variety which all tastes the same, as a poster above indicated, some Peppers from Hatch are mild, and some are very hot. If you have any influence in Hatch, I would suggest at least a "Mild", Medium", and "Hot" designators in the advertising.

I don't want to lug home a 30 pound sack, and then find they are Mild, when I was expecting Hot. This "negative" uncertainty only causes me NOT to buy them. I am sure I am not alone here in Northern California when grocery shopping.

Raybo

I just brought in my first batch of Big Jim's from the garden to go on burgers tonight. It sure would be nice to have someone else do the roasting for me.

I bought five pounds from my local HyVee in Overland Park KS tonight. They were marked at 1.89 a pound as "Hatch Chiles" but the clerk rang them up as "jalapenos" at 99 cents per pound. Score! I haven't tasted them yet, but they look like Big Jims and I assume they are from Hatch and on the mild side. When I have bought them in New Mexico, they usually are marked as mild, medium or hot, but I think they only ship the mild variety to us bland folks in the Midwest. Even if they have no heat, they still taste a damn sight better than what we can get or grow here. Green chile cheesburgers on the menu tomorrow night! Oh happy day.

he get's them at the farmers market on central and old coors behind the drive time i think only the smaller markets like that get the extra hot the big grocery stores usually only got mild medium and hot which weren't hot enough for us lol i've since harvested some seeds from ristras he made and started growing my own......and u are exactly right not all hatch chile is created equal i think they have some that's grown for shipment out of state but the really good stuff stays in state. btw if you go to that farmers market don't forget to stop at golden pride chicken accross the street and get a breakfast burrito best in town.......chicken is great too same company as the fronteer the only thing i miss about albuquerque is a pizza with green chile and canadian bacon or a big mac w/ chile or lota burgers and bobs bugers....yummm

raybo: I assume the Nob Hill ad was from your Calif. area? Reason I asked was that we also have a market by that name here in NM. Here the bags of chile x Hatch x the various farmers x the Hatch area are almost always marked 'mild', 'medium' or 'hot' & with the farmer's name tag on the bag/gunney sack. Because I guess everyone thinks that 'Hatch' chile is a specific variety of chile (which it is not), they don't bother to list the real name of the chile variety that is in the bag. I believe most is 'NuMex6', 'Barker', 'Big Jim' or 'Sandia' but there may be other varieties also but would have to chec with the Hatch growers to see what is being grown now.

Chile grown by several other NM farms do not call (or shouldn't!!) their's 'Hatch' chile and their chile- which most advertize it by the specific variety name- can be just as good as that x Hatch.

Sadly this misunderstanding has caused a lot of ??'s as you have indicated!!

vieja,

Yes, I am in San Jose, CA.

I truly believe the Hatch Pepper Cooperative is missing a golden opportunity, as major stores like Safeway, Lucky, and Nob Hill in our area are referring to the Hatch "Brand" - - this is advertising that would cost a fortune to develop on their own. Again, I reference the Brand image the Vidallia Onion growers were able to capitalize on with their produce. The Hatch Pepper Growers Cooperative should take a lesson from this and develop a Hatch Pepper logo and Brand, Heat Index of the different NuMex varieties they sell, and so forth.

While the local University of New Mexico Ag folks are focused on Heritage renewal such as the 6-4 and Big Jim, I would think the Marketing Department at the School could be tasked with creating an entire Hatch Pepper branding campaign to help the local growers. Again, they are getting free advertising and promotion now at the Supermarkets, so this would be a really fun project for the students to work on. What can you do to help this suggestion onward?

Raybo

raybo: I took your advise & e-mailed the NM Chile Institute about patenting the 'Hatch' name for those chilies really grown in Hatch, NM area; will see what happens! Sickler farms in Los Lunas, NM is selling the 'Sandia' hot & X-tra hot lcoally too & that farm is just south of Albuquerque a bit. Also heard the rumor that some chile in Hatch is being picked mechanically now too but haven't read anything about it to verify this. That would mean some bad stems would be picked with the good if by machine? Wonder how much is being left to ripen to red for the red chile picking/ristras this year!

vieja,

I'll be in Santa Fe next week (my son owns Santa Fe Hydroponics) and will be taking a lunch trip to San Antonio to the Buckhorn Tavern for a burger with some green chili on it. Really looking forward to trying this place. Supposed to be the 7'th ranked Burger place in America, according to GQ Magazine. Will also be picking up some NuMex Peppers to bring back home.

Raybo

Enjoy your trip! Ashamed to say we have not tried the burgers at the Buckhorn & have lived here over 50 yrs. & hubby goes back 7 generations in NM.

Albertson's earlier this Fall had the 30 lb. bags of chile roasted for $15 but I see our local chain of John Brook's stores had the 'Sandia' (35 lbs.) x Sickler Farms in Los Lunas, NM for $19 roasted this past weekend so the chile seems to be running higher $$ this Fall for some reason lately yet the crops all over seemed to be great. We just harvested the few Bhut plants we grew & are drying & grinding them for powder. We also did some green chile the 'pre-freezer' way: roasted, peeled & dried the green fresh in both dehydrators & on the clothesline (the real old way!)! That dried chile keeps forever & when we want to make some chile stew we just grab a handful from the plastic bag the dry chile is kept in, rehydrate it for several hours in water & then drain, chop it up with scissors, add onions, garlic & pieces of cooked beef, etc. for a stew. The flavor of 'chile verde seca' has a really different good flavor I think!

Your trip will be in the midst of the chile harvest! Have you ever visited the NM State U. Chile Institute near Las Cruces? Might be interesting! My favorite nursery there in S.Fe is 'High Country Gardens' & they have a small outlet here on San Mateo with the Jackalope store.

They're roasting peppers up here now!
I smelled the peppers last weekend at the grocery store.

Josh

greenman28: Even for those rare individuals that don't care for chile (!), the smell of roasting chile is heavenly, huh?

Exactly!
Even my dad gets curious when he smells the peppers roasting....
and he's the last guy to go for a chile.

Josh