“They’re breeding the heat out of jalapeños, and it’s all because of poppers,” says Rick Bayless, addressing a group of us attending his seminar on the foods of the Yucatan. Bayless, with two acclaimed restaurants in Chicago, an ongoing PBS cooking show, multiple cookbooks, and a nationally distributed line of salsas and sauces, is regarded by most food professionals as the leading authority in the States on the cuisine of Mexico and its many regional variations
I could have told him about the jalapeños. The problem is that some have the heat bred out of them but some don’t. I learned that the hard way more than 15 years ago, when I was still catering. In fact, jalapeños were the nearest brush with disaster I had during those years.
I’ve always been proud that every event I catered was successful. Catering can be a rollercoaster ride. No matter how well a caterer plans and executes, unknowns over which he or she has no control still lurk around the corner: the weather, transportation, working in an unfamiliar kitchen that belongs to the people who are paying you, a larger number of guests showing up than were expected (at least by the caterer), the guest of honor’s arriving an hour late, or hour-early conclusion of that meeting before dinner. Somehow I always managed to pull it off. Sure, there was the time the tomato sauce fell into the chocolate fondue when I had to slam on the brakes to avoid a collision and the time we had to transport food up a steep ice-coated driveway, bucket-brigade-style. But the clients were all pleased, and the guests never knew about the little behind-the-scenes dramas.
They never knew about the jalapeños either. It started when I got a call to book a wedding shower. It wasn’t for an afternoon punch-and-cake kind of shower, though. Nothing feminine and frilly for this bride: She wanted to wear jeans, drink beer, and eat lots of spicy Tex-Mex food. Last but not least, the caller wanted to hold the event in our bar.
That I had to think over. Several years before we’d installed a 21-foot antique walnut bar in an outbuilding that had been used to wash apples when our property was the site of a large orchard. We’d deliberately kept it rustic with the existing cement floors and tin roof. The only restrooms were a short hike away in our farmhouse. It was a great place for casual parties, but I’d never considered booking catering events there. Because the woman giving the shower was a friend of a friend and would provide event insurance for the evening, I agreed.
Jalapeños poppers had just begun making their appearance and were a novelty in a menu of Tex-Mex appetizers. A couple of months ahead, I began experimenting. I carefully removed the seeds and ribs (the source of all chiles’ heat), then stuffed the jalapeños with a combination of Mexican cheeses, dipped them in beer batter, and fried them. My family, those trusty guinea pigs, all gave them thumbs up. The mixture of cheeses was better than any we’d had in restaurants, and the jalapeños’ heat was just right. Success!
The first surprise of the shower came when the guests began to arrive. Somehow with the talk of jeans, beer, and Tex-Mex, I’d gotten the idea that this was a couples shower — but the folks making their way out to the bar were all definitely female. There was a mix of ages: About half were of the bride’s generation; the other half were mothers, aunts, and grandmothers, some of whom were well into the senior-citizen category.
“Looks like there’ll be lots of leftovers,” I said to my husband as I walked over to the patio where he was frying the poppers. “Guess what we’ll be eating for the next couple of days.”
“#&*^%*!!!,” replied my husband, who’d just sampled a popper. He grabbed a beer and began gulping frantically. “Have you tried these? They’ll blow your head off!” He glanced over at a particularly frail sweet-faced lady walking with a cane and the supportive arm of a younger guest. “If you serve these, you’ll be looking at a major lawsuit!”
Forewarned, I gingerly took a bite. He was right: It was incendiary. Maybe some of them weren’t as hot, but there was no way to find out. Fortunately, there were more than enough other dishes. No one missed the poppers, and we did eat leftovers for days.
Years later, the heat of jalapeños peppers is still variable. Strains grown commercially for poppers are mild, and pickled jalapeños can be purchased either hot or mild. Fresh jalapeños, however, are almost never labeled according to their degree of heat. Sometimes I’ve had to use more than I intended because they’re too mild, sometimes far less because they’re too hot, as was the case recently when I taught a cooking class on Caribbean cuisine.
So heed my warning: To avoid losing friends and alienating family, always conduct a taste test before using fresh jalapeños!
This article appears in Jul 20-26, 2006.
