Hot Chile Peppers Take Your Palate Around the World
1 February 2008 by Jean Johnson
I took this shot one of the rare days when the griddle was not in use on the stove. A wash in the background except you get a glimpse of some of the students I worked with in the Hopi and Navajo nations. Indeed, it was in Indian Country that I first appreciated what a little chile does to food. That foundation served me well as I continued to explore cuisines around the world and discovered how to use chile in everything from Thai to Mexican food.
It wasn’t always that way. The first time I chopped up a jalapeno like the ones pictured, it was back in the Sixties. I didn’t know what I was working with other than trying to eat more interesting food than the mainstream was dishing up. So when I brushed my cheek and a burn the size of Texas didn’t let go for a good hour, I jettisoned the peppers. “If they do that to my cheek, I’m definitely not putting them in our food,” I told my husband.
These days it’s different. I appreciate that just like cayenne, hot chiles go a long way–yet do so much for food. There’s rarely a soup or warm salad that gets made in my kitchen without some jalapenos or other hot chile minced into the garlic and added for some kick. And if kick isn’t what we need as February takes up January’s mantle, I don’t know what is.
