#green is my pepper

[acupofconure]

Palm full of smol pals. 💚

[loverdude]

These are all very identical looking but I originally just drew Pinkie but I wanted to draw the other two and I wanted them to match lol so...

Don't repost/use 4 anything 🎀 COMMISSION INFO

[transparensies]

vegetables • tip jar

[90spiderbros]

[lesbianchemicalplant]

“As more growers have adopted drip irrigation, more high-tech farming tools to grow the peppers, they’ll tend to be milder,” Walker told me first, as a sort of throat-clearing exercise before the real explanation. “But there’s more to it than that.”

The truth is more like a vast industrial scheme to make the jalapeño more predictable—and less hot.

Most jalapeños go straight to factories, for canned peppers, pickled pepper rings, salsas, cream sauces, dressings, flavored chips and crackers, dips, sausages, and other prepared foods. For all those companies, consistency is key. Think about the salsa world’s “mild,” “medium,” and “hot” labels.

According to The Mexican Chile Pepper Cookbook by Dave DeWitt and José Marmolejo, 60 percent of jalapeños are sent to processing plants, 20 percent are smoke-dried into chipotles, and just 20 percent are sold fresh. Since big processors are the peppers’ main consumers, big processors get more sway over what the peppers taste like.

“It was a really big deal when breeders [told the industry], ‘hey, look, I have a low-heat jalapeño,’ and then a low-heat but high-flavor jalapeño,” Walker explained. “That kind of became the big demand for jalapeños—low heat jalapeños—because most of them are used for processing and cooking. [Producers] want to start with jalapeños and add oleoresin capsicum.”

Oleoresin capsicum is an extract from peppers, containing pure heat. It’s the active ingredient in pepper spray. It’s also the active ingredient, in a manner of speaking, for processed jalapeños. The salsa industry, Walker said, starts with a mild crop of peppers, then simply adds the heat extract necessary to reach medium and hot levels. She would know; she started her career working for a processed-food conglomerate.

“I’ve worked in peppers in my entire life,” she told me. “Jalapeños were originally prized as being a hot pepper grown in the field. When we were making hot sauce in my previous job, we had the same problem, that you couldn’t predict the heat. When you’re doing a huge run of salsa for shipment, and you want a hot label, medium label, mild label, it’s really important to predict what kind of heat you’ll get. We tried a statistical design from the fields, and it just didn’t work, because mother nature throws stressful events at you or, sometimes, does not bring stress.”

The standardization of the jalapeño was rapidly accelerated by the debut, about 20 years ago, of the TAM II jalapeño line, a reliably big, shiny, fleshy pepper that can grow up to six inches long—with little to no heat. TAM II peppers have become some of the most popular in the processing business. The 2002 paper in HortScience trumpeted TAM II’s benefits: virus resistance, absence of dark spots, longer fruit with thicker flesh, earlier maturation, and, compared to a variety of jalapeño called Grande, less than 10 percent of the spiciness. TAMs grown in one location measured in at 1620 Scoville units, while those at another came in at just 1080, which is milder than a poblano.

In conclusion, the paper’s authors wrote, “The large, low-pungency fruit of ‘TMJ II’ will make it equally suited for fresh-market and processing uses.”

DeWitt, writing in his solo book Chile Peppers: A Global History, says TAM became widespread in Texas after its introduction. “It was much milder and larger than the traditional jalapeños, and genes of this mild pepper entered the general jalapeño pool. Cross-breeding caused the gene pool to become overall larger and milder.”

[...]

After 40 years of the milder pepper enjoying increased popularity, virus resistance, higher yields, and a shiny new sequel, hotter pre-TAM jalapeños appear to have lost substantial ground. Exact statistics on planting demand are hard to obtain because growers do not want to tip off seed suppliers on how to price their products.

As the invention of TAM I and II suggests, “jalapeño” as a name does not connote a single breed or genetic line. There are varieties of jalapeño as there are of tomatoes. Mitla peppers are at the opposite end of the scale from TAMs, sometimes reaching 8000 Scoville units. (The A&M paper derides Mitlas since they are often wonkily curved, and need more culling.)

[...]

For heat seekers, Walker recommends Mitla and Early jalapeños; they’re called “Early” not because they were picked early but because, as a breed, they grow quickly and are well-adapted to cooler environments.

[...]

For gardeners and small growers, the Chile Pepper Institute sells seeds but results will always be complicated, since a hot, dry summer can turn even TAM jalapeños into weapons, and a cool, wet season will result in pampered plants. But how can you find hotter peppers if you are shopping, or looking to supply your restaurant?

Walker’s best advice is to lobby suppliers and grocers for specific pepper breeds. Ask a produce manager or a supplier if you can get Early or Mitla peppers, or if the store can label its pepper breeds. And ignore the bogus factoids spread by many online shopping guides. I found a Rachael Ray Show article claiming that bigger peppers are always spicier than smaller ones—which contradicts everything I had just learned about TAMs being deliberately engineered for size. Walker called that tip “misinformation.”

(8 May 2023)

I am officially going Joker Mode

[kogglyuffs]

i still dont know how to nail the cr artstyle

[death-by-mercury]

[lixslife]

Cucumbers and peppers starting to pop off!!! Got some green onions planted as well. Parsley and other herbs are also doing really well!

I also managed to get a dragon fruit seeds to sprout!! Hopefully a couple others do too

[mylittlestims]

Pepperdance Stimboard

(X) (X) (X)

(X) (X) (X)

(X) (X) (X)

[emperorjoeychroma]

🇲🇽🌮🪇HAPPY CINCO DE MAYO!!!!!!!!🪇🌮🇲🇽

(FELIZ CINCO DE MAYO A TODOS😁)

[acupofconure]

Boingy boingy boingy boingy

[heshmmity]

idk where i saw this meme but i immediately decided to re-draw it

[ayrennaranaaldmeri]

book!aemond would hate show!aemond.

[scriv3lloirl]

Audrey n Seymour comic based off of somethin silly in a lsoh server I'm in hehe

[angelsdean]

they hate my girl !!!! (green bell peppers) 😫😭

[dinosaurwithablog]

Puerto Rican 🇵🇷 peasant food is the best food in the world, in my opinion. My grandma grew up in Puerto Rico. The family was very poor so they learned to take humble ingredients and transform them into a delightful and delectable dish. The red kidney beans were made by making a sofrito of onions, green peppers, garlic, tomato paste, salt, and pepper. You then add the beans that have been soaking in water overnight to the sofrito. After adjusting the seasoning, the beans cook on low heat until they are tender. You serve them over white rice. This dish is sooooooo delicious that I would choose it over steak and lobster any day. Puerto Rican 🇵🇷 peasant food is spectacular. These beans taste so good that I don't even miss the meat. They are high in protein. It's a very healthy and nutritious meal. It is inexpensive and it's fantastic. I, highly, recommend learning to make great rice and beans. I'm gonna have another bowl. Mmmmmmmm ❤️ 😍😋😋 thems good eats 😉😋