PICKING CHILI IN CHIMAYO, NEW MEXICO
A freeze was expected that very night. It had been a long, dry summer and the chile in Chimayo was expected to be hotter than usual. This was good for some, because
Chimayo Chile wasn’t generally a very hot variety of pepper to begin with. And yes, in case you are wondering, in New Mexico we spell chili C-H-I-L-E, with an “e”. I had to get some of those precious chile-peppers. It was my mission.
The first freeze of the fall was an important day to Chile farmers in Chimayo; it was the day they had to get all their crops harvested. Any peppers that remained on the vine tonight would be worthless in the morning.
It was around noon that I fired up my crumpled, old and rusted Toyota pick-up. It grumbled at me as I tried to get it to move into first-gear. It suddenly relented and I let the clutch out gently as we gradually began to move forward. Together, the old truck and I traversed the long, narrow driveway which led to the State Road, half a mile away. The hidden Chimayo valley wasn’t far…only about eight miles. I swung left at the appropriate place and descended into the village, passing crucifixion hill on my left and the Santuario on my right. The truck just whined as we went down the hill, and then made rattling sounds when we turned onto a dirt road which followed the Santa Cruz River downstream. I was looking for a field of chile where there were few to be found.
There just aren’t a lot of chile farmers in Chimayo…definitely not enough to fill the demand for the delicious and rare fruit. Even people who have lived in Northern New Mexico their entire lives, for the most part, had no idea where to obtain any. I had to get some because it was critical to the success of my new business.
A chile field! I pulled over in a bad place on the narrow road, weighed the chances of another car coming along, and got out of the truck. It was a small field between two small houses—maybe only a half-acre. There was no one there. “How strange,” I said to the truck sadly…“All those peppers are going to freeze tonight.” I knocked on the doors of the houses that sandwiched the little field but their occupants where either not at home or just didn’t want to talk to the stranger at their doors. I got back into the truck.
A little further down the road was a larger field of chile—maybe two acres. I turned off the road and asked the truck to stop…it grudgingly agreed. I walked towards the field and stood at the corner surveying the plants. These were
Chimayo Chiles alright; narrower and pointier than the better-known varieties of
New Mexico Chile, they were a bright, fire-engine red color with a few green ones here and there. On the far end of the field was a full-sized green Chevy pick-up truck and a man in a blue shirt with a black hat on his head, bent over on his knees, picking chile as fast as he could, tossing them into a a couple of white five-gallon buckets. I called and walked towards him but he appeared not to hear me. I kept walking until I was about fifteen feet away from him and said “Good afternoon!”
He quickly turned and stood up. He was quite startled and looked at me suspiciously. “It looks like you have a little chile here…” I said, “…would you be interested in selling any?” “Sure!” he replied, and immediately went back to picking his chile. I knelt down beside him and began to pick chile peppers and toss them in his bucket. As we picked chile side-by-side, we spoke with each other amiably. “Where are you from?” he asked. “Nambe…” I said, “…I want some Chimayo Chile so I can sell it on the internet. “I’m Dave.” I offered my hand. “Chavo…” he said, “…it’s a nick-name. My parents named me Chavehuencio, but most people can’t pronounce it, so they just call me Chavo.” His eyes twinkled mischieviously. “Where are your helpers, Chavo?” I asked, trying to twinkle just as mischieviously as he did. “They all left me.” he said, “They were here yesterday, but today no one showed up. I guess they didn’t want to work on Sunday.”
“I don’t think the good Lord would mind us working on Sunday, if it means these beautiful chile peppers will be saved from going to waste.” I said. Chavo smiled and picked up the buckets we had just filled; walked over to the Chevy and emptied them into it. He handed me a bucket and the two of us picked chile until it was too dark for us to see what we were doing. His truck was full, with a mountain of fresh peppers straining its leaf springs. He asked me to follow him to his house which was only a few hundred yards away. When we got there, under the bright floodlight which lit up his front yard, he showed me how he stored and dried his chile. He gave me a large bag of his
best dried and powdered red, as well as two large burlap sacks, filled with some of the fresh chile we had just picked. “You should come up and ride horses with me sometime,” he said, “I think God sent you to help me.” I laughed, and said “Maybe God was trying to help both of us, Chavo. I would love to go riding sometime.”
David Settino Scott III - January 21, 2012
