Red, Green, or Christmas?

If your summer travel takes you to the American Southwest, there are two things about food in the Land of Enchantment, New Mexico: Chiles, and Sopapillas!

Let’s start with dessert. Sopapillas are soft pillow-like, slightly sweet bread puffs. They automatically come with your meal in many restaurants. They’re hard to describe…..a lighter donut without all the sugar and grease, that is pillow-soft in your mouth.

Now let’s talk about the Chilis!  New Mexico is all about them and something you’ll be asked repeatedly: Red, Green or Christmas?

Chiles are everywhere in NM. The state license plate even proclaims it the Chile Capital of the World.

I had chili rellenos, huevos rancheros, chili relleno burrito, enchiladas, tamales—for breakfast. lunch and dinner and am not tired of it yet. People put chilies on everything. A green chili cheeseburger, some even put it on mashed potatoes! they’re not very hot and come with a ton of flavor. Green Chiles are similar to an onion, or garlic with a sweet, crisp, and smoky taste. Reds are green chiles that were allowed to ripen longer. They have the same flavor as the greens, plus an earthiness and a little more heat, but not too much.

 

 

New Mexico’s soil is perfect for growing chilis, Between 8,000 and 10,000 acres of chiles are harvested in New Mexico each year.. and both red and green come from the same plant.

I’m one of those who can’t decide because both green and red are delicious, so it was Christmas for me almost every meal. The most popular New Mexico chiles are grown along the Rio Grande, in the Hatch Valley. So when you see hatch green chili on the menu, you know you’re in for a treat. Most of the varieties of chile cultivated in the Hatch Valley have been developed at New Mexico State University over the last 130 years. By the way, in 2021 NASA astronauts aboard the International Space Station started growing New Mexico chile from seeds. They were later turned into space tacos.