As far as fests go, this has got to be one of your more subdued iterations . . .


Hatch Chile Fest @ Sunset Foods Highland Park - 19.0824

By the time we got there at 11:30, they were either out of -- or never had -- any roasted chiles hotter than mild.

=R=

Just to follow up, I wouldn't buy roasted hatch chiles again at Sunset because the ones we bought were roasted by someone who had either no clue or simply didn't care. Yes, they were charred on the outside but the chiles were still mostly raw and in keeping with that, the skins were virtually impossible to remove from the flesh. I do not appreciate Sunset's bandwagon jumping in the hatch chile arena. Either do it right or don't bother.

=R=

Sorry to hear that Ronnie. One of my former students who now lives in Chicago asked me yesterday where he could get Hatch chiles in Chicagoland--glad I didn't mention Sunset. Where might he go instead?

BTW, my cousin from Santa Fe last Tuesday sent me a USPS flat rate ($19.95) box containing slightly over 5# of Hatches, which arrived in fine shape on Friday. Ummmm. I immediately stoked up the Weber gas grill, and roasted those beauties. They're now all safely in the freezer, sort of IQF in bags. [Spread them out on pizza pans to freeze, then bundle them.] Ate *three* directly out of the Weber. Couldn't help myself. House still smells wonderful.

Geo

Geo wrote:Sorry to hear that Ronnie. One of my former students who now lives in Chicago asked me yesterday where he could get Hatch chiles in Chicagoland--glad I didn't mention Sunset. Where might he go instead?

I remember the roasted ones I bought at Heinen's last year being pretty good. But, like with so many other things, the best approach is to buy them fresh and roast them yourself. It's not difficult or time-consuming. Plus, when you buy them roasted, you still have to skin and seed them, so buying them raw doesn't add much more work at all.

=R=

HI,

I would not totally discount Sunset Foods as source. I think a phone call might clear up whether they have what you want.

Before Hatch Chiles became so easily available, I filled the back seat of my car with cases I brought back from Kansas for people. I was not aware there were heat gradients, I bought what I saw. In the same boxes randomly given to people, it was random hitting a mild or hot chile within the same box.

Regards,
Cathy2

Hard Times for a Hot Commodity, the Prized New Mexico Chile
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/16/dini ... -ios-share

Dave148 wrote:Hard Times for a Hot Commodity, the Prized New Mexico Chile
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/16/dini ... -ios-share

Behind a paywall for me mostly but thought it hilarious that the picture showed a worker dumping the chilies into a bin while noting they had to be picked carefully by hand.

Rick T. wrote:

Dave148 wrote:Hard Times for a Hot Commodity, the Prized New Mexico Chile
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/16/dini ... -ios-share

Behind a paywall for me mostly but thought it hilarious that the picture showed a worker dumping the chilies into a bin while noting they had to be picked carefully by hand.

That doesn't seem to weird to me: the chiles themselves are pretty sturdy, but without a careful hand, it's easy to do damage to the plants when you pick, reducing your overall yield. The peppers ripen at different times so you want to keep coming back.

I have been in the fields outside of Hatch when they are harvesting in September. Chiles are handpicked into buckets and placed in huge bins.

I don't know how they would use a harvester as that would pick all of the immature fruit.

Article that I heard on the radio told about how the Chili crop in New Mexico is 1/3 of what it was 15 years ago because farmers cannot get workers and so are not planting the crop.

These folks roast here in the Portland, OR area, and also sell their shelf-stable, roasted, chiles (plus sauces, etc) online. I bought their roasted green fresh, and have used the roasted red instead of chile powder in a posole, and it was fantastic. http://www.losroast.com/