The reason I took away from this: large agricultural producers of peppers bred towards a "low heat, low variance" standard, away from a "high variance" standard that produced frequent hot jalapenos. Low-heat-low-variance is better for mass food production, because producers can just dose the capsaicin directly, which is something they can't do easily when every pepper is a wildcard.
There are second-order effects, like drip irrigation and cultivation techniques that optimize for shape, size, and color over heat --- but those are enabled by the industrial jalapeno's new position in the production chain. The peppers just aren't the point where the heat is introduced anymore; that happens later. Might as well optimize for good looking peppers.
This seems fine? Peppers are one of the easier and more forgiving things to grow yourself. Just grow your own or buy from a farmer's market.
Moments later, after reading the thread
This kind of stuff really seems to piss people off, but when you think about the disempowerment of the jalapeno, try to keep in mind that the same industrial processes have performed unalloyed positive things. Have you noticed that you're way more into brussels sprouts now than you were when you were a kid? If you're a GenX-er or a Millenial, that's because today's (delicious) sprouts aren't the same plant as the (gross) sprouts of yore. Same deal with broccolini, which hadn't even been invented until after your birthday (for most of you).
> Have you noticed that you're way more into brussels sprouts now than you were when you were a kid? If you're a GenX-er or a Millenial, that's because today's (delicious) sprouts aren't the same plant as the (gross) sprouts of yore.
This is an oft-quoted fact, and it’s true that modern brussels sprouts are less bitter, but that’s far from the whole story. The popular preparation used to be boiling or steaming, and many people still find that gross with modern varieties. But over the past 15-20 years, frying or roasting them, and topping it off with things like bacon, parm, balsamic reduction, etc. became the standard preparation, and this is just a way more delicious way to cook them (for most ppl). I’d assume this makes a massively bigger difference than a reduction in bitterness.
I don't mind steamed sprouts today, but I remember how utterly repulsed I was by them as a kid. The preparation doesn't make a ton of difference, in my opinion.
The preparation concept is huge. Growing up way back in the day, industrial canned spinach was absolutely disgusting and pushed on all forms of school cafeterias. They even tried to influence its liking with a cartoon character. Many many years later, fresh spinach was made available and I find it delicious. How anyone thought that mushy slop from a can was ever considered edible is beyond me.
> The popular preparation used to be boiling or steaming, and many people still find that gross with modern varieties.
What is wrong with people? They're delicious, and an absolute must along side a reindeer roast with a creamed mushroom sauce, or similar. Steamed of course.
Though I did learn the hard way as a kid that they can be rather harsh on the stomach when raw...
I don't know that I buy this; I eat sprouts raw (slivered with a food processor) about as often as I roast them. They're noticeably sweet as a salad base.
Chiles are actually fruits and, combined judiciously, create a lot of complex flavors. Excess spiciness overwhelms the flavor. And people who want absurdly spicy peppers, can get them: ghost chiles, carolina reapers, and so on.
> I prefer more flavorful chiles, with less spice.
As someone with a fairly high spice tolerance, I've found a strong correlation between heat and flavor. I think anyone coming from a culture that eats spicy food will agree.
I had a batch of habaneros I grew last summer that were both the most spicy habaneros I've had, and by far the most flavorful. I've also had some very tasty ghost peppers (when used in moderation). Outside of peppers that are inherently not spicy, such as pablanos, heat and flavor seem to coincide.
All of the most flavorful chili dishes I've had in my life have all been quite spicy, and I can't recall any mild chili dishes I've had with nearly the same punch.
The only time I've seen heat and flavor not connected is in terrible hot sauces which aim to be shockingly spices that make use of capsaicin extract.
I occasionally go through OCD cooking phases and I went through one after reading the cook book "Sauces" (https://www.amazon.com/Sauces-Classical-Contemporary-Sauce-M...). There's a throwaway sentence in the book that refers to chiles, and the sauces made with them ("salsa" means sauce) not being fully appreciated. This led me down the path of "fruit purees as salsa" and I spent a fair amount of time working with chiles and regular peppers.
I definitely agree, I find that once the spiciness exceeds some level I simply don't enjoy the flavor the food. But when the spiciness is below that threshold, I absolutely love the flavor of pureed peppers. You can definitely tell all the different chiles apart, some are quite earthy, others are sweet fruits (habanero), other taste like raisins to me (pasilla).
I really wish we could have a habanero that is 1/4 as spicy. I LOVE the flavor of habaneros but their spiciness prevents me from putting too much.
That said on the flavor/spiciness scale a lot of the Chinese varieties are excellent. The chili peppers used in Sichuanese cuisine are actually not that spicy compared to habaneros or Thai chilis, which allows it to be possible to dump a bag full into a dish and it gives it a LOT of rich flavor.
One of the best unique beers I've ever had was a Jalapeno ale. The yeast had metabolized all the capsaicin, so there was zero spice. The Jalapeno flavor was crisp and clean, and you could taste a depth of flavor that was normally overshadowed by the heat. It made me appreciate peppers more now that I knew what to taste for. I've been meaning to try and recreate it and then work my way through various peppers/chilies.
The way commercially packaged jalapenos are now is closer to no-heat than low heat. You could swap them with chopped bell peppers and most people probably wouldn't notice the difference (and many like my father would still complain that the dish is too spicy.)
Particularly the chopped and canned/jarred jalapenos; I used to buy them for pizzas and chilis but they're just not worth it anymore.
> Less spicy is actually good. I prefer more flavorful chiles, with less spice.
Then buy a poblano instead of a jalapeño and leave the jalapeños alone?
The problem isn't just that they have less heat. Anything which becomes "industrial" loses all of the characteristics that "industrial" doesn't select for.
This includes spice, flavor, juiciness, nutrition, scent, etc.
> Less spicy is actually good. I prefer more flavorful chiles, with less spice.
Two problems with this idea as applies to the article. First, it's hard to separate the two in breeding (many of the most flavorful chiles, far more so than jalepenos, are pretty hot).
Second, industrial production optimizing for a lot of things: shipability, stability, shelf life, consistent size/appearance, in this case consistent capsicum ... most of these are considered more important than flavor according to revealed preference. Consider the current "standard tomato”. Round, dense, deep red, mostly flavorless.
So unfortunately you're likely to end up with a jalapeno that is more consistent, less hot, but also less flavorful - but looks good in the grocery.
The gist of that article is using the correct chiles for whatever your purpose is, ie mulatos over anchos for mole vs simply making everything weaker and accepting less heat overall.
Because the plants are reproduced asexually by cloning, exactly what you would expect happened, and a disease wiped out the monoculture fields (Gros Michel variety) of the early 1900s in the 50s and 60s.
Which we then replanted in purportedly less flavorful Cavendish, which was resistant to the then-dominant fungus.
Cue the new Panama fungal disease (Tropical Race 4) that Cavendishes are susceptible to, and we'll see what the future holds...
Maybe in 2085, grandparents will be waxing poetic about how they used to be able to get bananas everywhere cheaply.
It's fascinating to think that such a staple ("a banana") is completely different from the one people ate 60 years ago. And that they largely didn't exist in the United States grocery system 60 years before that.
> It's fascinating to think that such a staple ("a banana") is completely different from the one people ate 60 years ago.
The most interesting one to me is that US "bacon" and UK "bacon" are completely different things. But because of cultural crossover they get used for the same dishes, and people often don't realise the recipe they're working from was talking about something else.
An anecdotal fact: the bananas I was buying at a market in Thailand when I visited the country tasted so much different (and for me, better) than the bananas I buy in an American supermarket, I am not sure I'd know it's a variant of the same plant if I did not see them.
Have you never grown peppers? It really is absurdly easy. The point though really isn't that everyone's just going to grow their own peppers; rather, it's that it's very easy to introduce an alternate supply of highly-variable jalapenos, because there aren't many barriers to producing them. There are urban garden companies in Chicago that produce lettuce right now and could probably produce jalapenos if anybody really cared enough.
As someone that loves hot sauce, including fermenting my own, it's unfortunate that it does actually require growing your own if you want a lot of heat along with flavor. Using capsaicin extracts will give you heat, but often little flavor (or no flavor if you go hot enough).
Or go to any farmers market / specialty grocery. There are more varieties and more micro farmers of peppers than probably ever in humanity’s history. From not at all spicy to unheard new levels of spice. PuckerButt Pepper company is at the frontier of breeding new species for example
I mean the other obvious option is to use one of the other varieties of peppers that are known to be hotter: serranos, Thai bird chilis, habaneros, etc.
Today I learn that Brussel sprouts have changed on us. Odd, as I loved them as a kid, and still love them as an adult. Curious how genetic noticing that flavor shift is. Is it akin to how some folks hate cilantro?
And agreed that this all seems fine. The heat of these peppers is directly added to things that people want to have heat. I see some folks say they can taste differences, but I have stopped buying dips that are "hot" as they almost always taste the exact same, but have a burning flavor that lingers longer. Curious how much of this is my not being able to taste the differences, or others thinking that they can.
Yup it’s kinda like cilantro - you might not have the genes for tasting glucosinolates, the bitter compounds that have been bred down to lower levels in modern Brussels sprouts. Some people apparently don’t taste them, but they are very bitter to most.
> Curious how genetic noticing that flavor shift is. Is it akin to how some folks hate cilantro?
Yes. I'm one of these people, that stuff tastes like weird soap for me - but neither of my parents has that issue (and yes, my father clearly is my father), so the cilantro stuff is likely recessive.
If you have had Huy Fong Sriracha recently you’ll probably notice that it is less spicy than it used to be.
Apparently they were in a multi year lawsuit with their jalapeño pepper supplier based in SoCal that is specifically known for spiciness and they lost and started buying jalapeños elsewhere.
Then the pepper farmer started selling his own Sriracha sauce.
That's super weird, right? Because they could just dope the sriracha batches back to whatever level of heat they want. I make fermented hot sauce once a year, and I end up doing that too? And I'm a dummy?
Are we sure this isn't just a market shift thing? Like: maybe they lost some heat unintentionally or unknowingly, but then sales went up?
> today's (delicious) sprouts aren't the same plant as the (gross) sprouts of yore
For what it's worth, your (adult) tastes probably changed more than the vegetable itself. Even with the reduction in glucosinolates, few children would call brussels sprouts "delicious". Children are born with a preference for sweetness, while disliking bitter tastes. Both of these traits diminish as they reach adulthood. [0]
We also generally know how to prepare them better. Most people these days recommend and prefer them roasted and caramelized, and that is a world of difference from the boiled to death sprouts of yore.
Anecdotally, my young children both love brussels sprouts. They're actually one of the very few greens I can get them to consistently eat, other than green beans.
> Peppers are one of the easier and more forgiving things to grow yourself. Just grow your own or buy from a farmer's market.
There's only 5 species that make up the domesticated peppers. Most come from just 2: capsicum annuum (bell peppers, jalapenos, anaheims, and the vast majority of the rest) and capsicum chinense (scotch bonnet, habenero, ghost peppers, etc). [1]
Those 2 species will also cross-breed pretty well, and within a species there is of course no barrier for crossing. The best part of having a garden with a lot of pepper varieties is that next year's volunteers are going to be some fun mystery-cross, like cayanne looking pepper with no heat, or a super hot (but slightly mangled looking) hatch. Sometimes different seeds from a single pod may produce wildly different crosses - pollen from multiple plants may be on that bee!
So while you're absolutely correct that peppers are very forgiving[2] to grow yourself, amusingly that makes breeding your own jalapenos for next year a lot of extra effort. If you don't net them off from pollinators and hand pollinate, you will likely get unexpected results.
[2] my family has a joke that peppers are not forgiving, they are masochists - that is they seem to do better when you kind of just ignore them (to the point of not even weeding near them), unlike other plants that do even better when you pamper them.
As someone who does small scale food production (not with jalapeños) I appreciate it. The big salsa producers surely just have someone running a mass spec on site. Consistency is a lot harder for smaller producers who don’t have the budget for expensive machines/scientists and ready access to capsicum. (I actually do buy that in liquid form for one product, but not an oleo-resin, something water-soluble.)
In cooking for myself, I still appreciate it. I like heat more than nearly anyone, to the point where it’s borderline pathological, but I also like pepper flavor, and now I get to use more of it! When I come across a batch of less hot habaneros I buy all I can, they have a wonderful flavor and I’d like to use more of them.
> more into brussels sprouts now than you were when you were a kid
You're not wrong, though I actually prefer oldschool sprouts. I grew some a few years back and the nostalgia hit me like a train. Super rich, earthy, bitter, and perhaps a little tougher than what you get today... We ate them a lot growing up, and that was exactly how I remembered them, yet at the store they're more like tiny, slightly bitter cabbages. Still incredibly by all means, I really love them. I eat them all through winter. Even so, I do miss the more opinionated version from my youth.
One nice thing about modern sprouts is they tend to be shaped better and easier to cook consistently. The sprouts from when I was a kid were definitely less like perfect little cabbages, so cooking them now is quite a bit more convenient and reliable.
Be sure to check out Spanish Padrón peppers, if you haven't already. They're often served fried in olive oil and salted (see photo in Wikipedia article), as a very popular tapas.
I grew Apache chilis and there was definite variance - one year the green fruits were napalm, the next they literally tasted like bells (until they turned red...)
It depends. Variance can be a huge issue when cooking peppers into a dish. It's not just as simple as waiting to the end and testing heat levels. For most mass grown varieties they've gotten things to be pretty steady. Even though I agree it's disappointing for other reasons at least I don't have to worry that adding a 2nd habanero to a stew will make it inedible.
I wondered what this new 'broccolini' was everyone's talking about here, turns out it's just another pan-Atlantic vegetable name variation; it's AmE for tenderstem broccoli.
Has something similar been done with onions to make them sting less? Nowadays they don't bother me whereas when I was growing up, decades ago, I couldn't cut one without tears.
Yes, there are modern cultivars that have far lower levels, or in some cases none, of the irritating compounds. These cultivars only grown in certain conditions so in markets that have seasonal growing you’ll notice some times of the year you get tears and some you don’t.
Agree with all the above. Also, I quite prefer not having super-hot peppers. I've known people who consume hot peppers and they eventually ended up with stomach issues. Maybe it does not affect everyone... In any event, I prefer milder flavors over something which overwhelms. Then again, I probably like cheeses that could overwhelm some people.
> Peppers are one of the easier and more forgiving things to grow yourself. Just grow your own or buy from a farmer's market.
They're pretty challenging and high effort, IMO, and certainly not worth the effort relative to just buying some. Jalapenos are like 7 cents each at the grocery store!
Really, though, the true innovation in brussels sprouts was figuring out that you could roast them with bacon and some maple or balsamic glaze. ("Yes, that would also make the box they came in taste good")
>Low-heat-low-variance is better for mass food production, because producers can just dose the capsaicin directly, which is something they can't do easily when every pepper is a wildcard.
As if simple math can't be used to average out the dose.
I find the variance in spiciness for peppers quite annoying. If the same packaged product can vary between "I don't even notice any spiciness" to "Too spicy for me, I have to throw it away" that is just wasteful.
Brussel sprouts are a bad example. They are the bastard product of hundred of years of human fuckery to turn the same plant into kale, sprouts, broccoli and more.
I got the same impression. There's no nefarious conspiracy to make shitty peppers for the tasteless masses. It just makes a lot more sense to make mild peppers, then add the capsaicin later on.
It'd be nice if you could still get a dice-roll-super-spicy jalapeno from the grocery store, though. I can't imagine my landlord would be keen on me growing jalapenos behind my building (or maybe they'd be fine with it! There's really only one way to find out).
I love to ferment my own hot sauces so I am always on the lookout for new varieties of extremely hot peppers.
There is one, one!, pepperhead in the Bay Area farmers markets. You only hear hushed whispers of him at the other markets, but through a various sequence of flatteries and bribes you will be lead to him at the Clement Street farmer’s market on Sundays. (as of 2024)
Jamil at Raised Roots makes some of the most delicious fermented hot sauces made with only the showcase pepper, salt, water and garlic.
I wish I could give him some traffic but it seems his web presence is a bit outdated, so if you’re in the area check out the scorpion and fatalii. They are absolutely delicious.
As I understand it it’s an “urban farm” so it has multiple plots around the city of Oakland. Meaning the peppers are grown outside, meaning they are seasonal. So raised roots only sells peppers at harvest in November, but you can get the sauce all year round.
That’s the state of wanting hot peppers living in San Francisco.
It's interesting how bad incentives are when something with qualitative differences (flavor, heat) is sold by the pound. Making it more palatable expands the market up to a point, but so does requiring more peppers generally.
The most durable countermeasure seems to be totally outside of the purview of economics: building up a culture of caring about the product. Like tomatoes in Italy, or coffee beans among coffee lovers.
For heat we've mostly had to rely on serrano or (when in season here) the Hungarian wax pepper (varies wildly between 1k and 15k scoville)
Are the incentives "bad", really? It seems like they are getting less spicy because that is what most people want. There seems to be an assumption that because Big Jalapeño are changing the flavour it must be for the worse. Personally I prefer spicier peppers but I am definitely an outlier amongst my friends at least.
I don't know that we need countermeasures, as such. I think it's fine to have a very common, affordable product that is predictable and palatable to the masses alongside other more niche variants which are popular with "enthusiasts" (and therefore might be less widely available and more expensive).
That's kind of how it is with coffee. Most people get theirs from Starbucks or some other big chain. I hate that stuff but they clearly like it, and I don't begrudge them it. As long as I am able to get my fruity single-origin light roasts.
I guess maybe you don't have those niches in jalapeños (I don't know where I would go to get a spicier jalapeño) but as you mention, there are other peppers we can look to if spice is what we want.
You make the assumption that consumers want what they buy, consumers will just buy what's in front of them. In places dominated by big supermarket chains consumers have a lot less choice than it seems, as marginal costs for shopping a few items from elsewhere are high.
Coffee is a fun one, as I absolutely hate the taste of arabica coffee. And that seems to be universally the preferred family of coffee for the everyone.
There are agricultural products where price per bushel has to do with some grading, which is tested along in the supply chain. If I can easily, quickly, cheaply test for any trait, its value can be priced in. See how much apples have improved, given that we could tell varieties on sight, and people learn the properties that come with each variety.
If you could tell whether a pepper's value in the scoville scale before buying, or the supermarket could accurately label things cheaply. the price differential, and therefore the quality, will follow.
Many of the people in this threat at quoting their younger years. i didnt hear anyone quote,
> Taste Bud Density: Children have more taste buds than adults, and these are more sensitive. This heightened sensitivity can make certain flavors, especially bitter ones, more intense for children. The number of taste buds decreases as people age, which can lead to changes in taste sensitivity and preferences.
I actually could barely taste at all as a child due to a very severely deviated septum. When I got it fixed in my early twenties, my tastes changed dramatically
I've been on a salsa making kick lately and use chipotles, which are dried and smoked jalapenos. Raw plain jalapenos were never that attractive to me although I did eat them whole frequently when I worked in a mexican restaurant...
The chipotles I get are plenty spicy- 3 small chipotles is enough heat for an almost uncomfortably spicy salsa (in this case, I'm talking about a salsa is made just from the chipotle flesh and some spices and water). If it wasn't spicy enough, I'd add arbol chiles (just one) which are painfully spicy.
I don’t like more than a little spicy but I discovered that if you stand the jalapeño up and cut vertical panels leaving the core and seeds behind, they are essentially just sweet peppers with a little kick. It seems that almost all of the heat is in the seeds and the plith.
As mentioned in another comment, you are correct that by far the highest concentration is in the pith/placenta (~90% typically). The seeds have a relatively low capsaicin concentration, but their surface gets spicy from being in direct contact with the pith.
But practically speaking, you're right. You can just cut away the outsides and get most of the flavor without much spice at all.
My experience is most peppers pack the most heat in their seeds. Some peppers have a hot oil that can get on your fingers and start tingling minutes/couple hours later.
I thought the same, but it's supposed to be from the pith. I just think that since the seeds grow off the pith, you get some of that pith with the seeds. I've also felt the horror and pain of using the restroom hours after dealing with peppers, not realizing the mistake that I had made. Never again though, that was a teaching moment for life!
Yeah it's been interesting for me to watch as my kid eats fresh restaurant salsa with chunks of jalapeño in it. I remembering wondering if I ate jalapeño chunks at that age; it makes sense that this is just a trend in the spice level, not my kid being a spice-monger.
Wow, I was just telling my partner last week that the Jalapeños I'd bought were not spicy and it seemed like it was happening more and more often. I love Jalapeños with cheese and crackers and it sucks to cut up a whole jalapeño only to find I might as well just used a green pepper.
I make salsa once a month and have noticed this the last couple years. Occasionally get a spicy batch, but more often am adding habaneros to bring up the heat.
I made a verde for the Super Bowl a couple weeks ago and tried to keep it mild since I didn't know everyone's preferences. Even after 3 jalapenos in a small batch of salsa, it had almost zero spice (commented on by party goers - still tasty though).
Last week on the show Chrissy and Dave Dine Out, the chef of an Ethiopian restaurant in LA commented how she quit using jalapenos because they're not spicy anymore and opts for serranos in her dishes instead.
Anyway, I kept thinking I was getting weak batches/unlukcy in my jalapeno selection, but I guess I need to start going for serranos.
Readit News
There are second-order effects, like drip irrigation and cultivation techniques that optimize for shape, size, and color over heat --- but those are enabled by the industrial jalapeno's new position in the production chain. The peppers just aren't the point where the heat is introduced anymore; that happens later. Might as well optimize for good looking peppers.
This seems fine? Peppers are one of the easier and more forgiving things to grow yourself. Just grow your own or buy from a farmer's market.
Moments later, after reading the thread
This kind of stuff really seems to piss people off, but when you think about the disempowerment of the jalapeno, try to keep in mind that the same industrial processes have performed unalloyed positive things. Have you noticed that you're way more into brussels sprouts now than you were when you were a kid? If you're a GenX-er or a Millenial, that's because today's (delicious) sprouts aren't the same plant as the (gross) sprouts of yore. Same deal with broccolini, which hadn't even been invented until after your birthday (for most of you).
This is an oft-quoted fact, and it’s true that modern brussels sprouts are less bitter, but that’s far from the whole story. The popular preparation used to be boiling or steaming, and many people still find that gross with modern varieties. But over the past 15-20 years, frying or roasting them, and topping it off with things like bacon, parm, balsamic reduction, etc. became the standard preparation, and this is just a way more delicious way to cook them (for most ppl). I’d assume this makes a massively bigger difference than a reduction in bitterness.
https://www.centreofthecell.org/blog/science-questions/why-d...
What is wrong with people? They're delicious, and an absolute must along side a reindeer roast with a creamed mushroom sauce, or similar. Steamed of course.
Though I did learn the hard way as a kid that they can be rather harsh on the stomach when raw...
Chiles are actually fruits and, combined judiciously, create a lot of complex flavors. Excess spiciness overwhelms the flavor. And people who want absurdly spicy peppers, can get them: ghost chiles, carolina reapers, and so on.
"Flavor > heat" in other words.
As someone with a fairly high spice tolerance, I've found a strong correlation between heat and flavor. I think anyone coming from a culture that eats spicy food will agree.
I had a batch of habaneros I grew last summer that were both the most spicy habaneros I've had, and by far the most flavorful. I've also had some very tasty ghost peppers (when used in moderation). Outside of peppers that are inherently not spicy, such as pablanos, heat and flavor seem to coincide.
All of the most flavorful chili dishes I've had in my life have all been quite spicy, and I can't recall any mild chili dishes I've had with nearly the same punch.
The only time I've seen heat and flavor not connected is in terrible hot sauces which aim to be shockingly spices that make use of capsaicin extract.
I definitely agree, I find that once the spiciness exceeds some level I simply don't enjoy the flavor the food. But when the spiciness is below that threshold, I absolutely love the flavor of pureed peppers. You can definitely tell all the different chiles apart, some are quite earthy, others are sweet fruits (habanero), other taste like raisins to me (pasilla).
That said on the flavor/spiciness scale a lot of the Chinese varieties are excellent. The chili peppers used in Sichuanese cuisine are actually not that spicy compared to habaneros or Thai chilis, which allows it to be possible to dump a bag full into a dish and it gives it a LOT of rich flavor.
Particularly the chopped and canned/jarred jalapenos; I used to buy them for pizzas and chilis but they're just not worth it anymore.
Then buy a poblano instead of a jalapeño and leave the jalapeños alone?
The problem isn't just that they have less heat. Anything which becomes "industrial" loses all of the characteristics that "industrial" doesn't select for.
This includes spice, flavor, juiciness, nutrition, scent, etc.
When you build up tolerance for spice, you are in a position to enjoy the beautiful and little known flavors that hot chiles offer
Deleted Comment
Two problems with this idea as applies to the article. First, it's hard to separate the two in breeding (many of the most flavorful chiles, far more so than jalepenos, are pretty hot).
Second, industrial production optimizing for a lot of things: shipability, stability, shelf life, consistent size/appearance, in this case consistent capsicum ... most of these are considered more important than flavor according to revealed preference. Consider the current "standard tomato”. Round, dense, deep red, mostly flavorless.
So unfortunately you're likely to end up with a jalapeno that is more consistent, less hot, but also less flavorful - but looks good in the grocery.
Very, very neat talk though
Because the plants are reproduced asexually by cloning, exactly what you would expect happened, and a disease wiped out the monoculture fields (Gros Michel variety) of the early 1900s in the 50s and 60s.
Which we then replanted in purportedly less flavorful Cavendish, which was resistant to the then-dominant fungus.
Cue the new Panama fungal disease (Tropical Race 4) that Cavendishes are susceptible to, and we'll see what the future holds...
Maybe in 2085, grandparents will be waxing poetic about how they used to be able to get bananas everywhere cheaply.
It's fascinating to think that such a staple ("a banana") is completely different from the one people ate 60 years ago. And that they largely didn't exist in the United States grocery system 60 years before that.
Ref: https://www.vox.com/2016/3/29/11320900/banana-rise
The most interesting one to me is that US "bacon" and UK "bacon" are completely different things. But because of cultural crossover they get used for the same dishes, and people often don't realise the recipe they're working from was talking about something else.
But I'd argue peppers are the easiest non-herb vegetable/fruit to grow, so it's a fair suggestion.
Deleted Comment
And agreed that this all seems fine. The heat of these peppers is directly added to things that people want to have heat. I see some folks say they can taste differences, but I have stopped buying dips that are "hot" as they almost always taste the exact same, but have a burning flavor that lingers longer. Curious how much of this is my not being able to taste the differences, or others thinking that they can.
Yes. I'm one of these people, that stuff tastes like weird soap for me - but neither of my parents has that issue (and yes, my father clearly is my father), so the cilantro stuff is likely recessive.
Apparently they were in a multi year lawsuit with their jalapeño pepper supplier based in SoCal that is specifically known for spiciness and they lost and started buying jalapeños elsewhere.
Then the pepper farmer started selling his own Sriracha sauce.
Are we sure this isn't just a market shift thing? Like: maybe they lost some heat unintentionally or unknowingly, but then sales went up?
For what it's worth, your (adult) tastes probably changed more than the vegetable itself. Even with the reduction in glucosinolates, few children would call brussels sprouts "delicious". Children are born with a preference for sweetness, while disliking bitter tastes. Both of these traits diminish as they reach adulthood. [0]
[0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4654709/
There's only 5 species that make up the domesticated peppers. Most come from just 2: capsicum annuum (bell peppers, jalapenos, anaheims, and the vast majority of the rest) and capsicum chinense (scotch bonnet, habenero, ghost peppers, etc). [1]
Those 2 species will also cross-breed pretty well, and within a species there is of course no barrier for crossing. The best part of having a garden with a lot of pepper varieties is that next year's volunteers are going to be some fun mystery-cross, like cayanne looking pepper with no heat, or a super hot (but slightly mangled looking) hatch. Sometimes different seeds from a single pod may produce wildly different crosses - pollen from multiple plants may be on that bee!
So while you're absolutely correct that peppers are very forgiving[2] to grow yourself, amusingly that makes breeding your own jalapenos for next year a lot of extra effort. If you don't net them off from pollinators and hand pollinate, you will likely get unexpected results.
[1] https://peppergeek.com/capsicum-pepper-species/ has a nice overview for the curious.
[2] my family has a joke that peppers are not forgiving, they are masochists - that is they seem to do better when you kind of just ignore them (to the point of not even weeding near them), unlike other plants that do even better when you pamper them.
https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2019/10/30/773457637/fr...
In cooking for myself, I still appreciate it. I like heat more than nearly anyone, to the point where it’s borderline pathological, but I also like pepper flavor, and now I get to use more of it! When I come across a batch of less hot habaneros I buy all I can, they have a wonderful flavor and I’d like to use more of them.
My plants produce extremely mild peppers...
So either the seeds I got were already bred to be mild or maybe there's something else going on there :)
My habaneros are spicy as ever though, so it can't be exclusively be environmental.
You're not wrong, though I actually prefer oldschool sprouts. I grew some a few years back and the nostalgia hit me like a train. Super rich, earthy, bitter, and perhaps a little tougher than what you get today... We ate them a lot growing up, and that was exactly how I remembered them, yet at the store they're more like tiny, slightly bitter cabbages. Still incredibly by all means, I really love them. I eat them all through winter. Even so, I do miss the more opinionated version from my youth.
One nice thing about modern sprouts is they tend to be shaped better and easier to cook consistently. The sprouts from when I was a kid were definitely less like perfect little cabbages, so cooking them now is quite a bit more convenient and reliable.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Padr%C3%B3n_pepper
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shishito
I grew Apache chilis and there was definite variance - one year the green fruits were napalm, the next they literally tasted like bells (until they turned red...)
I microwave the frozen ones and fry in a cast iron till a they are a little burnt on the outside.
> Peppers are one of the easier and more forgiving things to grow yourself. Just grow your own or buy from a farmer's market.
They're pretty challenging and high effort, IMO, and certainly not worth the effort relative to just buying some. Jalapenos are like 7 cents each at the grocery store!
Also, Brussel Sprouts still taste like gym socks or bad cabbage to me.
As if simple math can't be used to average out the dose.
ok so sample a smaller batch for averaging? that would probably work i agree. it must be more expensive though
They're less gross than they used to be, but they're still pretty gross.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brassica_oleracea
It'd be nice if you could still get a dice-roll-super-spicy jalapeno from the grocery store, though. I can't imagine my landlord would be keen on me growing jalapenos behind my building (or maybe they'd be fine with it! There's really only one way to find out).
Dead Comment
How’s that houseplant doing?
> or buy from a farmer's market.
I love to ferment my own hot sauces so I am always on the lookout for new varieties of extremely hot peppers.
There is one, one!, pepperhead in the Bay Area farmers markets. You only hear hushed whispers of him at the other markets, but through a various sequence of flatteries and bribes you will be lead to him at the Clement Street farmer’s market on Sundays. (as of 2024)
Jamil at Raised Roots makes some of the most delicious fermented hot sauces made with only the showcase pepper, salt, water and garlic.
I wish I could give him some traffic but it seems his web presence is a bit outdated, so if you’re in the area check out the scorpion and fatalii. They are absolutely delicious.
As I understand it it’s an “urban farm” so it has multiple plots around the city of Oakland. Meaning the peppers are grown outside, meaning they are seasonal. So raised roots only sells peppers at harvest in November, but you can get the sauce all year round.
That’s the state of wanting hot peppers living in San Francisco.
The most durable countermeasure seems to be totally outside of the purview of economics: building up a culture of caring about the product. Like tomatoes in Italy, or coffee beans among coffee lovers.
For heat we've mostly had to rely on serrano or (when in season here) the Hungarian wax pepper (varies wildly between 1k and 15k scoville)
I don't know that we need countermeasures, as such. I think it's fine to have a very common, affordable product that is predictable and palatable to the masses alongside other more niche variants which are popular with "enthusiasts" (and therefore might be less widely available and more expensive).
That's kind of how it is with coffee. Most people get theirs from Starbucks or some other big chain. I hate that stuff but they clearly like it, and I don't begrudge them it. As long as I am able to get my fruity single-origin light roasts.
I guess maybe you don't have those niches in jalapeños (I don't know where I would go to get a spicier jalapeño) but as you mention, there are other peppers we can look to if spice is what we want.
If you could tell whether a pepper's value in the scoville scale before buying, or the supermarket could accurately label things cheaply. the price differential, and therefore the quality, will follow.
> Taste Bud Density: Children have more taste buds than adults, and these are more sensitive. This heightened sensitivity can make certain flavors, especially bitter ones, more intense for children. The number of taste buds decreases as people age, which can lead to changes in taste sensitivity and preferences.
Also, you don't need taste buds in order to taste the spiciness of a pepper because it's mostly a pain sensation.
The chipotles I get are plenty spicy- 3 small chipotles is enough heat for an almost uncomfortably spicy salsa (in this case, I'm talking about a salsa is made just from the chipotle flesh and some spices and water). If it wasn't spicy enough, I'd add arbol chiles (just one) which are painfully spicy.
But practically speaking, you're right. You can just cut away the outsides and get most of the flavor without much spice at all.
I made a verde for the Super Bowl a couple weeks ago and tried to keep it mild since I didn't know everyone's preferences. Even after 3 jalapenos in a small batch of salsa, it had almost zero spice (commented on by party goers - still tasty though).
Last week on the show Chrissy and Dave Dine Out, the chef of an Ethiopian restaurant in LA commented how she quit using jalapenos because they're not spicy anymore and opts for serranos in her dishes instead.
Anyway, I kept thinking I was getting weak batches/unlukcy in my jalapeno selection, but I guess I need to start going for serranos.
Only recently, I discovered its actual reputation is to pack a punch.
I grew up with Thai chillies as to mean “the chilli”. I still put this stuff on anything that needs some chillies. And that really does pack a punch.
It's just that they used to be spicier.
But if you wanted something really spicy, you never bought jalapeños even in the past -- you went for serranos or habaneros if you could find them.
There are a lot of jalapeño varieties [1]. Ripe Biker Billies are about as hot as cayenne [2].
Looks like one can buy Mitla seeds on Amazon [3].
[1] https://pepperscale.com/jalapeno-varieties/
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cayenne_pepper