Chilli and the hippie feel

Or should the title read: I lost that loving feeling?

I stopped writing about chillies almost totally, some time ago, you must have noticed. Not for no reason no, but I got sick of it all loosing the hippie feel. After 4 of my articles about the-race-for-your-best-chilli-or-money, I got dragged through the mud, to say the least. In facebook discussions all the hard data was pulled up in doubt, and questioned. In discussions, I was quoted with comments as being a self-righteous sob or even a bigot as claims that my interpreting of the cold hard numbers were false.
Endless discussion about average heat in records, being average high, and not average mean.
Weird enough I was accused of gaining in some sort of financial way even though I am not in the chilli business, by spreading lies about real numbers that are not mine but from the official institutes like the chili pepper institute in New Mexico.
Smoke and mirrors, as the only ones contesting the cold hard numbers, were commercial growers.

Even though I am in the Netherlands, I started getting calls from the US, from growers telling me the “real” story mostly jabbing about why others should not have had the Guinness worldrecord for the hottest chilli. Point to another, for yourself not to be seen is not good I tell my kids. Divide and conquer, to win in the market?
Low and behold I thought it was an American thing hyping chillies and never getting a record, but a few weeks later a Finland grower started telling he had the next record winning chilli, without showing proof.
Not seen any since my last article about the race months ago.
But, maybe the fight in the market is shushed down for a good few weeks, as Ed Currie has got the new Guinness worldrecord for the hottest chilli with his Carolina Reaper. I would say congrats Ed for your endless work to get it through Guinness.

So I lost the love, for the chilli scene, nothing to do with hippies but just cold hard cash. And don’t tell me that is not true; I read an interview from one of the commercial growers, making about a million US dollars a year.
After getting more and more mails, telling yet another time a different story of what really happened, I got sick of it. I banned every commercial grower that tried to sell me shoe laces for leather belts. I don’t react on any accusation made to my address; I don’t give a rats arse anyway, as I so lost the love.

Sure, some of my old real friends tried to pull me back in the hippie side but every time I say anything about chillies, I start getting this rotting smell up my nose again. Buy this, buy that, we’re better than others and others are better than. . . .
I even have a chilli group on facebook, I started to avoid and when I did drop in, I saw loads of advertisement. No, no, it is just a taste test video naming a certain website a zillion times. . .
Right, and my name is Conny !
Well, first thing I did was toss out the overly pushing their seeds down your throat kind off sellers, then I started to interact a bit again.

At the other hand, I am working my arse off trying to start up a care farm for challenged people, so I don’t have time to interact that much. “De Groeistek” (Eng= place where you can grow) will be a place where we grow heirloom foods, together with our participants giving them the support they need.

When friends got the news where I was working for, I got a load of support, overwhelming and heart warming. Loads of links were shared, and a lot of attention throughout the world. Friends started sending me special chillies, telling me to use the seeds at the farm and make some money from them. Catharina send me loads, Chris Fowler that makes excellent sauce send me a load, Ivor Davies told me he would sponsor the farm with seeds as well. I am starting to feel. . . .

You know, if I could learn to be hard and start promoting on the “I will shove those sees down your throat” kind of way I could really make a buck. I am allowed to put a 150 m3 greenhouse there, I could make more, maybe even. . .
I could make a million too, even with a care farm, if I only start promoting as. . . .

Noo, as I start feeling the love! And, I don’t want to bloody taint it!

Cheers Bart

Preparing for a dessert recipe.

Some time ago I was asked to write a different recipe with Sichuan flower pepper, the Spice the west forgot to steal. Now that, is not an easy I have to say.
To help me make it up I tried various brands of flower peppers. Getting back to the flower pepper from Jenny Song I tasted the richness and got some ideas.

It is hard to come up with a recipe if an ingredient or spice is that new, and most of all that rich in flavour. Sure, I made a great fish soup recipe with it, but I was looking for something totally different. So I called Jenny Song for a brain session, and that gave us some ideas. I came up with an idea to make a great dessert and a small fish dish. I won’t reveal all, but you will have to start prepping with me now, in order to make a great dish fit for an Emperor in 14 days.

You will need a good bottle of grape brandy or Weinbrand, ripened on French oak, such as the Majestät Weinbrand from Germany made by the Schwarzwälder Edelbranntweinbrennerei in Bimmerle. These are available in the Lidl, but I am sure another good grape brandy will do too.
Now poor a cup of brandy in a pot or bottle that you can seal, add 6 teaspoons of sugar and 6 teaspoons of flower pepper to it.
Close the bottle and leave it closed for 14 days at least, no peeking or smelling.
In the original bottle, add ¾ of a cup (120 grams) sugar and 1 table spoon of Sichuan flower pepper. Close this bottle again, and let it sit for 14 days at least.
What you will see the colour off the flower pepper faints, while it enriches the grape brandy.
What you will smell and taste is a fantastic Grand Marnier like liqueur but with the taste of mandarin orange and herbs. . .

More to come in 14 days.

Enjoy looking at it,

Cheers Bart

Taste report for Rocoto de Seda

It's Rocoto season!

After waiting for more than two full months my Rocoto de Seda finally turned to beautiful jellow.
Today I harvested the first one and couldn't wait tasting it.

The inside contains three "chambers" with large black seeds (black seeds are typical pubescens).

Carefully i put a piece in my mouth. HMMMM! Nice sweet like raisins, no not those sticky black things from the red box but raisins that are not ruined by sulfuring them.
(who invented the sulfuring? why ruin the lovely tast raisins have?)
I even tasted some banana.
After a few seconds the heat kicks in, aw! to much for me!
With the juices the heat spreads quick over my, lips, mouth, throat and stomach, everywhere.







Inspired by the raisin like taste I took what was over from the fruit, cut some raisins, added a little water and sugar and as finish some lemon juice.
Cooked it slowly for a few minutes. The rocoto and raisins did match indeed..its a sort of hot baklava...maybe try hot apple pie next time












Bart, thank you for letting me write on your blog!
Aldo

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

Korean chillies, forgotten fruits? Part 2

A good friend of mine from Korea Mr. Gunsoo Lim and I am sending seeds up and down the world.

He is keen for superhot chillies, and I am looking for the ones that have a story to them or that have history.

It is not only that we send chilli seeds over the world; we also try to learn about each other’s culture through our food and recipe’s.

So I have gotten seeds from him from herbs, medicinal and for the kitchen, or a combination of the two.

That is where we differ in culture too, for me Endive is a green, good cooked and raw.

For my Korean friend, his food is both food and good for something, be it health or garden anything.

He got me Garland Chrysanthemum or Golden Daisy, as a green to eat raw, be it good for anything, I hate it.

The flower is superb looking, good and healthy an all, not food in my mind.

However, I got Korean Perilla from him as well, good for the soul and for the stomach.

The seeds are used for oil, and that oil looks a bit like sesame oil, that is why this herb is called sesame leaf.

The leaf however does not taste like sesame at all.

Now sesame leaf is an herb one shouldn’t miss out off, it is superb to drop in your stir fry at the last moment, and has a fantastic smell and taste to it.

Hard to describe, I would almost say it is peppermint, without the pepper. Sort of like the menthol is skipped in the herb, and the tastes behind that in peppermint has gotten stronger by 5.

It has a bit of sweetness about it, that you taste when it has just touched the pan for a bit, raw it is more strong of taste.

My friend showed me, they eat sesame leaf raw, folded as a parcel.

In this parcel, there is a clove of garlic, a piece of chilli, and a spoonful of soy pasted.

Have to try that this year, a bomb of taste for sure!

Man this is getting long, and I even haven’t started about the Korean chillies.

After months of searching, my friend Mr. Gunsoo Lim had found 2 rare Korean chillies and send me a note that he had something special, not saying what.

Another month later, he told me he had asked two farmers to send seed from special chillies, which are not even for sale in the market or at seed stores.

To me it sounded a bit strange, but later he told me, there were just a few farmers left that grow them, as they aren’t commercial enough these chillies.

Ha, now we’re talking aren’t we?

So he had these farmers send seeds from east to west in Korean, from a very isolated area, and that took its sweet time.

Waiting is half the fun, so I read up on where these chillies come from.

The soobicho pepper (Soobi cho) and the chilsoungcho (Chilsoung Cho) both come from a county in the Gyeongsang province.

They come from the Yeongyang County (Yeongyang-gun); This an inland county in the north-eastern area of North Gyeongsang Province, South Korea.

The soobicho pepper is cultivated since the 1960s, with a hot and sweet taste.

These chillies are susceptible to pests, so must be grown with great care.

They have a low yield, and are now only grown in low numbers and small areas.

The chilsoungcho chillies were popular in the 1980s, and lately are hard to find.

Its chillies have the form of a Crucian carp. The taste of this pepper is mild and sweet.

These are the 2 very rare chilli seeds that came to me now about 2 months ago, and almost proud to be here in Holland, they grow big and proud, and are the largest plants I have now.

Chillies from Yeongyang, where people sing about their chillies, not joking it is true !

An isolated area difficult to access, Yeongyang is sometimes called an "inland island". The county has the lowest population of all counties in North Gyeongsang Province, being mountainous with deep ravines, and only 10 percent of land is cultivable. The county is famous for its apples and chili peppers, and is home to the Yeongyang Chili Pepper Experimental Station. From 1984, the county has elected a "Miss Chili Pepper" to represent Yeongyang chili peppers.

The area is also known as a centre of literature, with the tradition of scholars reading and reciting poetry deep in the mountains. I love poetry!

Writing this down, I see myself discovering this regent, eating their apples, chillies and tasting their recipe’s.
After experiencing their great hospitality, and good food I will climb a mountain there.

I see myself reciting my poetry, in the woods on the mountains in Yeongyang!

To my wife;

Tell it to the mountains,

tell it the trees,

tell it to the birds in the trees,

and the playful young foxes on the ground,

but tell it no woman,

or,

tell it to no man,

how much I love you.

For men can not believe,

that a man loves a woman,

like the way,

I love you!

Yours truly,

Bart J. Meijer