Sometimes tasting is hard

Dear readers,

Sometimes tasting is hard, and having my head bent over an other chilli a full evening, laptop next to it with not a word typed. I felt rotten all night. Really, I didn't get any taste, I could not compose it to a story.
So I started to get stressed, did want to have a story out tonight, and it was just not going to happen with this chilli. So I tasted an other, and no, not a drop off inspiration. Then you start to doubt, is it the wrong time, am I having a cold? Is this a boring chilli, is it me?

When I took a break, I thought about next weeks Monday growing article I wrote yesterday. Before I can publish it, I need to take pictures. So for that article I read in for about 3 hours, composed an article in 2 hours, read it through and made corrections for about half an hour. Then I sorted what pictures I needed to make, and wrote that down or made notes rather. That is the time some articles take, and I still have to make the pictures.

Its not only that, but also the tasting, it takes time.
Maybe an apology is in order, for it might be that I make tasting sound so easy at times, or composing a dish. Sometimes it is, but most of the times it is not at all that easy. I know that some sauce makers take over a year to compose a sauce they are really happy with, tasting and re tasting. Adapting it a bit, tasting again. And they don''t give up but make a brilliant sauce at the end. One recipe I had took me a year to make it perfect. 3 years later I made it different, with a totally different approach but the same ingredients, and only then it was superb, and finished. You should have seen the faces here! "What have you done with the original recipe???" And all off them loved it.

So sometimes making a story, tasting some things is ever so easy, and sometimes the taste needs to ripen and the story shelved, just waiting for an other day.

Yours sincerely,

Bart J. Meijer

Overwintering a chilli plant

Some weeks ago I told you about pruning a chilli plant for overwintering. Now I have a good few plants in the house at the moment, all doing fairly well, I am pleased. So I was in the process of tasting chillies again. Now that does take a bit of time as I do have to do some research as well, to try and tell you the most I can. Now with my head in tastes, with the accidental burn at times, I am trying to find words.
At times it is hard to describe a chilli, same as you tasted something new and had to describe the herbs. When I look at Hell’s Kitchen from Gordon Ramsey, I find it most amusing to see wannabe chefs that cannot pick out tastes like peanut butter. Very funny to look at Chef Gordon’s face as well. Sorry I am drifting off topic again.

So when I was staring out the window to get a grasp at a taste, my eye started to focus on a plant..
Good grief, I killed a plant, and then remembered my own tips and tricks. Please excuse me for killing 2 plants in fact, now you see an experienced grower makes mistakes too.

In a post before I told you about the hormone system of a plant. If a plant has ripe fruits, especially a chilli plant, it thinks it is done for the season. So if you pick the ripe fruits, it will ripen off the rest of the fruits. If all fruits are picked the plant will start to flower again, getting in a growing and flowering state again. Now that is all done by the plants hormone system. In fall and in winter it is much the same, with one major difference. If a plant has a ripe fruit on, it will start to die in winter, as it has done its task. How can I forget? Well with my head up the clouds. . .

A plant with black/purple fruits should be observer very good.

So other than the regular tips for your overwintering plant, like don’t overwater; don’t leave ripe fruit in the plant. Now it the plant starts to get in flower mode again, it might drop all its flowers. Now that is a shame if you want to have good chillies early in the year. The main reason for flower drop is low humidity, and there is an easy fix to that. If you do get flowers and the plant is over a radiator or other form of heating, put some water in a pot on top of the heater.
If the flowers open, give the plant a little tap at times or a bit of a shake. The male and female parts are so close in the flower, as said in my post about isolating flowers, it will self-pollinate. But as I do so certainly hope there is no wind blowing through your house, give the plant a shake to imitate the movement of the wind.

Yours sincerely,

Bart J. Meijer

Taste report the French chilli ”Doux de Landes”

I have been looking for French chillies for some time, and never found them. There are chillies from the different regents like Landes or the Basque a regent in France. In France they use different non pungent or very mild chillies in their meals instead of black pepper; even in restaurants they have salt and chilli powder on the table instead of salt and pepper! In the Basqu their chillies have an Appelation d'Origine Controlee, which means a sort of quality and origin controlled certification mark, and this certification mark is not taken lightly. These are heirloom chillies that are cultural heritage, protected and all! They are very expensive to buy either whole and dried or in powdered form, and seeds are very very hard to get.
Now guess where I got them from, I got these seeds from the US, from Dilly's Chilis Seed Co., isn’t that nice?

Now this Doux de Landes, which means “Sweet of the Lands” is from the Landes regent. First time I tasted it, I tasted it together with my son Bram, and I ate the first bit, and felt no heat at all. Bram didn’t get any heat at all, and when I looked again, he had eaten it in total seeds and all. He just smiled and say: Dad, that was one sweet lovely chilli, the best sweet chilli I have ever had! And man did he have a huge smile! I couldn’t be mad at all.
Some days later he said: I have eaten the others too, will we get more soon? Now I did get worried, and had a chat with him.
He understood, no worries, but I had a bit of a problem. There were only 2 others, and I needed to guard them, and took the last plant carrying, in the house.

Now I finally tasted the second last one. Just as I remembered, that is one chilli you need. It is fruity, and paprika like with both herbs and fruits, with the sweets not being over the top. Hot darn, I love it, and only got one fruit left. I got the seeds from Dilly's Chilis Seed Co. and this again is one superb chilli! These are stunning, and I almost start feeling guilty for saying one of his last chillies was not good. But hey I am not a salesman, what I don’t like I tell. But this one is superb really. The kids urged me to buy new seeds, for they want to take these chillies as a snack, or should I call them peppers for they have no heat at all. I don’t care, they are fantastic, and I want to see my kids taking them to school next year. Imagine them eating chillies at lunch on school, I bet they will get more than a few surprised looks !

Yours sincerely,

Bart J. Meijer

Taste review, Ciliegia Piccante or Baccio de Satana (Satan’s Kiss)

This Italian Heirloom variety was on my “need to have” list last year, one with a growing popularity in the Netherlands. So, got it and grew it. I do have to say, the promise of not too hot, and the words Satan’s kiss triggered to buy them too. Just would love to have a funny little cherry chilli with a bit of a kick.

Beautiful pant and jolly great show and all, but this is not a candy. The first time I bit one in half, I did everything but sing. Good grief, this one lovely looking chilli has a stingy heat and really is more than mild. So I tried this chilli over and over again to get what is so special about them. And I am afraid to say, if found nothing special in them taste wise. It is just your regular boring chilli, that looks superb.

We have tried them with peanut butter filled, with cream cheese, and with anchovies making them a load better. But they are small and full off seeds, so it does take a bit of trouble to be able to use them. I for one will not grow them again for tastes, but will grow them for keeping this heirloom alive. If you do have the patience for cleaning the seeds out, I bet they are wonderful in a pickle or brine. Do use a good herbs and a good bit of garlic and salt to get them some flavour.

It is a stunning looking chilli with a good bit of heat but not a special taste.

Sincerely,

Bart J. Meijer

Taste report Ethiopian Brown

I am ashamed to say I don’t know who offered me those seeds, but I do have to say thank you !
The name got a bit puzzled and I had to see what came out. There are 2 varieties that closely resemble each other, the Ethiopian Brown and the Berber Hot chilli. After the fruits started to form, it was obvious; it really is the Ethiopian Brown as the pods form hanging down. The Berber hot, is growing up, so got that covered and the name has proven to be right.

This plant forms irregular, a bit wrinkled pods that slowly sort off fold out to a point you might think they will get totally smooth, but they don’t. Funny looking chillies that stay green a long time, then start to slowly show some brownish red or reddish brown. If the sun is covered with clouds, they really are brown, but if the sun gets to them the red shines through the brown. Stunning, almost looking like a chestnut that just dropped with the husk split showing the lovely colours inside. I tried to catch this colour in a photograph, and this took me a long time, but they are beautiful.

It seems to be a rather rare chilli and it is huge. Most measure 12/15 cm and 3/4 cm wide. Unfortunately I can not find too much about them, other than being used in the Berber kitchen. Stews and such, slow roasts pots and being roasted they seem to have multiple uses.

When digging in, I noticed this is a complex chilli to taste and describe. I never go for looks, and try not to be fooled by appearances; I am not the best looker either even though I got good taste. This chilli without any doubt has dark tastes, combined with good sweets, and even a hint of chocolate. Now this said, I started to doubt myself; did I get fooled by the looks? You know, the association one has with looks, so tasted it again. I was pretty sure, but as a check gave my wife a bite, without telling what it was. She doesn’t know too much about chillies but her first comment was; is this chocolate chilli?
So, she had the same idea, without knowing what it was. The basic tastes this chilli has are: sweets, fruits, herbs, ground tones and a slight but very pleasant bitter. This is why I had the idea of chocolate, milk chocolate, the bitter you find in chocolate and sweet coffee.

The one down-point from this beautiful chilli is its skin; it is rather tough or hard. Looking at the taste and its odd but beautiful appearance, it is a need to have chilli I would not mind roasting and peeling. In a mortar it would make a great pepper paste, adding a bit of sea salt and a touch of garlic.
This chilli is great dried as well, with its taste not changing that much, so would make great flakes or powder.
Enjoy!

Sincerely yours,

Bart J. Meijer

I had a dream

Hot is not a taste, and it is not all what chillies are about.
The constant hammering about hot hotter hottest, keeps a lot off people away from chillies.
And some people just don't seem to get this. Growers, bloggers and seeds sellers keep hammering on the heat.
People do not want pain, but excitement both in taste and experience. That is what a chilli should be, and has been in the past, in history.

So I had a dream, I wanted to get some taste to the world of chilli.
Now that sounds presumptuous, but I started all this, getting sick of all the hot hotter hottest chilli.
Really, if you ask how a chilli tastes, the answer normally is: Hot, hotter or hottest. Now excuse me, but that has little to do with taste, it is only one aspect. Have you ever given website selling chilli seeds a good look? Did you ever see one with a satisfying taste report to it?

So I had a dream, to taste as many chillies that I can, so if people would ask, they can put a real taste report on their sites.
Now I am working myself through chilli after chilli, and some I had to taste another time again. Had a cold 2 times, so was not able to taste. Still I did a good bunch and writing down as much as possible, some 30 taste reports pending.

Then being almost winter and so, I started to look at the "need to taste" list for next year. This year I had 110 varieties, so what am I going to do this coming season? Looking over varieties, it started to dawn on me, it will be hard to succeed. There are around 4500 varieties, I tasted some 180 this year, getting send from all over the world. So if I get to taste 200 next year, it will take me 22,5 years to taste them all. Ok, so why was I rushing? Can I keep this dream for the next 22 odd years?
So after this epiphany about tasting, I took a 4 days break from tasting, made a good picture while checking seeds with an antique loupe..

About good taste:
Video reviews do soo seldom get my and keep my attention. Low quality with loads of background noise, and nothing else to show for. A lot of them are utter useless, not describing any taste, or have like a 5 minute trailer and 1 minute or so with something that might say something about taste. There are also video's on Youtube about most silly tricks like sticking chilli powder up your nose. Or even tasteless video's about challenges eating 10 chillies, where just one would be enough to spice up a whole cow, with throwing up and all.
Now subscribe to my youtube channel? No! Are you serious ?
Or worse, former car sellers selling the next worse chilli, talking it to heaven with a mouth full of chilli, mentioning certain websites that sell them over and over again. Who is going to believe that? Booho I want to see taste !

So I made 2 episodes of chilli video reviews, that are out of this world silly! I tried to copy the Young Ones from the BBC a bit. Soooo:  Subscribe to my channel !

Really subscribe to my channel !

I mentioned a few video reviewers that I did like in a former post, but I have to tell you it was a huge relief to get pointed out a week ago to the video reviews of Tmudder, and Volker Berlin together with Felix from Pfefferhaus.de
These guys do have taste, and thank God for good video reviews. Rant is over, and I will get back to tasting again soon, please do excuse me for the dip I had.

Yours sincerely

Bart J. Meijer

Taste review Monkey Face chilli

The Monkey face chilli was a medium hot chilli everybody talked about last years, so it was a need to have chilli for me. It was a bit of a slow starter, but that might have been me. I was sort off sold, when I heard it would be a great base chilli for sauces, so well a had to have. Now the plant has a lovely form, grows a bit like a tree. I like that, but I am not in this for looks, I want taste.
It is supposed to have sort of a Monkey Face in it, and I did see a few good photographs, but I didn't really get a good one. So not really a monkey face. Still the somewhat odd form and looks make it to be a great looking odd chilli. Sure I do like a good looking chilli, but I love to have a good taste as well. Now I heard that it was a good one to over-winterer as well, now that were all the pro's known to me.

So I had it grow for a year and last month I had one to taste. It taste is a bit complex, and I had to taste a few before I got it. The heat is direct, no surprises no build, no. You know what you are eating the first bite, so that is good to work with.
Basically it has sweet, a touch of bitter some herbs, fruit, and a wood like tone. Some say it would taste like mango, but then I would rather say a touch of pineapple as it has that wood tone as well. In my terms I would say, it has the sweets of a yellow bell pepper, the pleasant light bitter a red bell pepper has, and some herb with a wood like tone. Herbs between Coriander seeds or Turmeric. It is odd, this is a complex chilli with both fruits and herbs, lovely indeed. Now at the time I don't really know what to combine it with, so I left them to dry.

Dried they are a different ballpark, whole new story indeed. If you have them sundried or very slow natural ripened, they are out of this world !
They will get the sweet taste of sundried tomatoes, the sweet will also start to top over to the liquorice taste that you get in slow natural ripened chillies. The taste will stay complex and lovely and make you wonder what it is you are tasting. Really stunning, like this they can stand on their own making a great powder of flakes, or add them to your table salt grinder. The pleasant taste will linger on for at least 10 minutes, just lovely.

Yours sincerely,

Bart J. Meijer