Chile Peppers

by Dave Dewitt

  An employee at Lottie’s cooks up pepper sauce. Photograph by Dave DeWitt.

  The limin’ continued in full force on Sunday when a caravan of cars converged on Farley Hill and most of the crew from Oistins was joined by Jasmine and Frank, Norman the jokester, and Dennis for a rain-soaked picnic. Farley Hill is a landscaped national park and the ruins of a nineteenth-century plantation great house that was featured in the 1956 Harry Belafonte film, Island in the Sun. That would be before it burned down. Some 900 feet above the ocean, the ruins are constantly cooled by the trade winds, which brought squalls that kept us jumping back into the cars. Under the direction of Anne-Marie, we feasted on cabbage and bacon salad, roasted pork with Bajan seasoning, ackee and salt fish, Caribbean rice, coconut bread, black cake, and sweet potato–pineapple pie.

  The only question we had was, could restaurant fare top this?

  DINING FROM JERKIT TO SANDY LANE

  Of course, it was our duty to eat at as many restaurants as possible. One thing we had not counted on was dining with birds. Since most of the restaurants are alfresco, dining with only a roof or umbrella over your head, the birds will readily help themselves to your food. They are nondescript but industrious sparrows and ravenous small grackles, jet black with brilliant yellow eyes. As we found out at breakfast at the Sandy Beach Island Resort, they are particularly fond of croissants.

  There were several interesting restaurants near the Sandy Beach, where we enjoyed nice rooms and a great view of a truly sandy beach. At the tiny restaurant Jerkit on the Worthing Main Road, Al Knight and his son Ian told us that they went to Jamaica to study jerk technology and then changed the cooking style to meet Bajan tastes. The Bajans, as it turned out, would not eat crispy grilled pork. “They like their meat with gravy,” explained Ian. So now they use typical jerk spices but stew the meat instead of smoke-grilling it as the Jamaicans do. The jerk chicken is grilled, however, because Bajans are accustomed to barbecued chicken done on a grill.

  True local cuisine was the main menu at the Bonito Bar, in Bathsheba, on the wild east coast. Swimming is banned here but the site of the Barbados Surfing Championships is opposite the restaurant. Enid Worrell, former home-economics teacher and now owner and cook at the Bonito, was proud to inform us that her first name spelled backward is “dine,” which was propitious considering the quality of her food.

  I had to experience the Flying Fish, a Bajan specialty that’s exquisite when slathered with the mustardy hot sauce. Mary Jane had the Creole Dolphin and our meals were accompanied by Fried Plantains and Breadfruit. Then Enid brought us her pride and joy, corned peppers. She described this use of bonney peppers in her thesis, “Local Nutritional Satisfying Foods”: “These peppers were ‘corned’ with vinegar and salt after extracting the seeds to reduce the strength of their flavors and these pickled peppers were stored for future use, when the fresh ones became scarce.”

  Continuing our search for local food, we tried with great delight the Planter’s Buffet at Brown Sugar in Bridgetown. This classy, open-air restaurant had mahogany accents and delightful prints of the early days of sugar production and colonial Bridgetown on the walls. The buffet included Creole Eggplant, Pepperpot, Fried Flying Fish (again), Creole Okra, Saffron Rice, and Gooseberry Tart. The pepper pot, with its sweet and spicy slow-cooked meat was particularly memorable.

  The Waterfront Café alongside the Careenage, in downtown Bridgetown, took the worship of local flying fish to the next logical step with melts: flying-fish roe that’s battered and fried. I loved shad roe when I lived in Virginia, but this roe was much milder and tasted more like a delicious fried clam. It was washed down with the local island beer, Banks.

  The Waterfront’s owner, energetic Susan Walcott, recognized Emerson and quickly pried out of us our purpose for hiring a Taxi Driver of the Year. In the true spirit of Mary Jane’s philosophy that “it’s a small world and you gotta be good all the time,” Susan, hearing we were from New Mexico, said that a famous musician from Santa Fe was having lunch on the patio. A few minutes later, jazz great Herbie Mann and his wife, Janeal Arison, dropped by our table to introduce themselves. Herbie was in Barbados for a concert and was dining at the Waterfront because it was the main jazz bar on the island.

  Speaking of musicians, we were fortunate enough to interview Eddy Grant, best known to North Americans for his hit reggae songs “Romancing the Stone,” “Electric Avenue,” and “Baby Come Back,” but who now is becoming famous for his efforts to preserve the history of calypso music. He is planning to open a calypso museum in Barbados.

  On our last day on the island, we went from the ridiculous to the sublime. We flew back from a short visit to Trinidad on a Sunday around noon, and not only was it too early to check into the hotel but very few restaurants were open for lunch. Jerkit was closed and we eschewed the fast food of Chefette, so we ended up at Bubba’s Sports Bar in Worthing, eating hamburgers and watching Germany beat the Czech Republic in soccer. We felt a bit guilty, but hey, it was all part of the Bajan experience. And the burgers weren’t half bad!

  What a reversal for dinner! I changed from shorts and T-shirt into a coat and tie, and Emerson drove us to the fanciest resort on the island, the Sandy Lane, where the room rates start at $800 a night. We were the guests of Executive Chef Hans Schweitzer, who had led the Barbados team of chefs to victory in the most recent Caribbean Culinary Classic.

  The Sandy Lane was extremely classy and for a moment I worried about my garish chile pepper tie. But Hans professed to love it as he greeted us and kissed Mary Jane on both cheeks. Swiss chefs must do that in Barbados, I thought.

  Dining in a covered verandah open to the gentle breeze, we could hear the soft sound of the surf and gaze on the softly lit tropical foliage below us. It was quite romantic, and fortunately, the Sandy Lane management had thoughtfully provided netting to keep out the grackles. Chef Hans himself brought out the sinfully rich foie gras, imported from—where else?—Long Island, New York.

  As if that weren’t overkill, we shared a large portion of Lobster Ratatouille that was extraordinary. Then it was time to order the main course and there it was! Oven-Roasted Leg of Black Belly Sheep with Yams and Local Vegetables. Mary Jane opted for the Gently Fried Dolphin with Pommes Duchess and Tomato Basil Fondue. The sheep was lean and tasty, much like a cross between lamb and venison. Chef Hans’s food was every bit as elegant as the venue. When we return to Barbados, we’re thinking about reserving the Sandy Lane Penthouse Suite at $2,200 a day and staying for as long as we can afford: about four hours.

  Because of sugarcane and rum, Barbados became the wealthiest European colony in the Caribbean. It’s still wealthy. During high tourist season years ago, two Concorde flights a day from London landed at Grantley Adams International Airport. And because none of the other powers in the Caribbean—Spain, France, or Holland—ever captured it, Barbados has remained staunchly British in attitude and custom. The literacy rate is 95 percent, and you don’t see the shantytowns, grinding poverty, and crime I’ve witnessed in Montego Bay and Port of Spain. Even the money is easy: two Barbados dollars for one American. The Bajans speak English clearly, have a great sense of humor, and love sports and hot and spicy food. What more could you want from an island paradise? Oh yeah, the beaches are perfect too.

  The beach at the Sandy Beach Resort, where we stayed in Barbados. Photograph courtesy of the Barbados Tourism Authority.

  Bernice Campbell in the market at Ocho Rios, Jamaica. Photograph by Dave DeWitt.

  JAMAICA: SCOTCH BONNETS AND COUNTRY PEPPERS

  “In Jamaica, much use is made of fresh peppers,” writes Norma Benghiat, author of Traditional Jamaican Cookery, “the most highly esteemed hot pepper being the ‘Scotch bonnet,’ which has a wonderful perfume and flavour.” She adds, tantalizingly: “In recent times a Scotch bonnet pepper has been developed which retains the aroma and flavour, but is not hot.” According to one source, this pepper, like the one in Trinidad, is also called “seasoning pepper,” and
is a pepper that is mildly pungent and remains green, never maturing to orange or red.

  We tried to track down such a pepper during several trips to Jamaica, and at first we thought we had found it: the “country pepper,” as it’s called. But the more we asked people to distinguish among the varieties, the more we became caught up in a typically confusing pepper nomenclature controversy.

  According to vendor Bernice Campbell in the Ocho Rios Market, country peppers are more elongated than Scotch bonnets and have more flavor. With a typical pepper contrariness, cook Betty Wilson disagreed. While serving Dave and Mary Jane fricasseed chicken and grilled parrot fish at a streamside picnic on the Rio Grande near Port Antonio, she claimed that Scotch bonnets are not as hot as country peppers but are more “flavored.”

  Our room attendant at Ciboney Resort, Carol Burrell, insisted that no, Scotch bonnets were hotter than country peppers. Habanero grower Graham Jacks wrote to us: “One of these country peppers is a deep brownish purple when ripe, and is truly ferociously hot; much hotter than the Scotch bonnet.”

  To add to the confusion, a variety called “Jamaican hot” occasionally appears in pepper literature. Author and chef Mark Miller, in his guide, The Great Chile Book, describes it as “smaller than the habanero but similar in shape.” It is possible that this variety is the same as the “West Indian Hot” mentioned by Jean Andrews, but pepper importer Joe Litwin told us that the “hots” are generic terms used in the United States but not in Jamaica.

  Jamaican peppers from the book Jamaican Food; illustration by Rev. John Lindsay, 1767. Public domain.

  According to Joe, who imports Jamaican peppers through his KAL International Company, there are two kinds of Scotch bonnet: one is green that matures to yellow; it is very common and is called Scotch bonnet. The term “country pepper” is broadly used for red peppers, which have the same shape as the yellow ones. Large red habanero-shaped pods are also called country pepper and are probably congo-pepper imports from Trinidad. I am still very confused about country peppers, seasoning peppers, and Jamaica hots.

  Joe Litwin, incidentally, started growing Scotch bonnets in Jamaica in 1991; he had previously cultivated organic sugarcane. He has 25 acres under cultivation in various parts of Jamaica and he also utilizes contract fields. There is no way to estimate total Jamaican production, Joe told me, but his company imports the fresh pods into the United States at the rate of 3,000–4,000 pounds a week. And because of fears of drug loads being smuggled along with the peppers, Joe or one of his employees personally oversees the loading of every shipment of Scotch bonnets onto the plane. He also manufactures a line of products under the Jabeba House brand, including Scotch bonnet hot sauces in red and yellow, and jerk sauce.

  Jamaican jerk sauces are a combination of spices and Scotch bonnet chiles used as a marinade and baste for grilled meats. The word “jerk” is thought to have originated from the word ch?arki (the question mark is part of the word), a Quechua term from Peru. The Spanish converted the term to charqui, meaning jerked or dried meat, which in English became known as “jerk” and “jerky.”

  The technique of jerking was originated by the Maroons, Jamaican slaves who escaped from the British during the invasion of 1655 and hid in the maze of jungles and limestone sinkholes known as the Cockpit Country. The Maroons seasoned the pork and cooked it until it was dry and would preserve well in the humidity of the tropics. During the twentieth century, the technique gained enormous popularity in Jamaica, and today “jerk pork shacks” are commonly found all over Jamaica. The method has evolved, however, and the pork is no longer overcooked. In addition to pork, heavily spiced chicken, fish, and beef are grilled to juicy perfection. Today there are dozens of brands of jerk sauces manufactured in Jamaica and the United States.

  Scotch bonnet peppers on thyme. Photographer unknown. This work has been released worldwide into the public domain by its author, Microdac, at English Wikipedia.

  In addition to their use in hot pepper sauces and jerk sauces, Scotch bonnets are also pickled whole and in crushed form. In cooking, yellow Scotch bonnets are used with escovitch fish, which are fillets cooked with the pepper slices in vinegar, lime juice, and pimento (allspice). The whole pods are often floated in stews or stewed dishes such as oxtail soup, curry goat, fricasseed chicken, and stew peas and rice, and are removed just before serving. Cooks take care not to let the pods burst or the meal may be too hot to eat!

  BELIZE AND YUCATÁN

  In 1988, Mary Jane and I teamed up with Nancy and Jeff Gerlach and traveled to the Caribbean country of Belize to investigate habanero usage, and we soon became fascinated by the extremely hot sauces produced there utilizing habanero chiles—including Habanero Five Drops, Pica Rico, Hi-Taste, and Melinda’s. We hired a small plane with a pilot and flew to the tiny town of Melinda in the foothills of the Maya Mountains in the southern part of Belize and met Marie and Gerry Sharp, who have a hot sauce–bottling operation.

  Marie Sharp began bottling Melinda’s Hot Sauce in 1983 after she became frustrated with the local produce markets. A lover of habanero chiles, she had grown about a hundred plants among citrus groves on the Sharp’s 400-acre plantation. After the initial harvest, she carried the chiles to the local market, where buyers insulted her by offering one dollar Belize (fifty cents US currency) for a gallon of pods.

  “I will not give away my peppers,” Marie vowed, and from that point on she knew that a bottled sauce was the answer to marketing the habaneros. But there was one problem—her friends told her that the other habanero sauces were so hot that a single bottle often lasted six months or more. Since she wanted her customers to buy more than two bottles of sauce a year, Marie experimented with numerous recipes until she found one with more flavor and less heat than the competition.

  A bowl of habaneros. Photograph by Dave DeWitt.

  Next it was necessary to find a dependable source for the habanero chiles, since in Belize they are grown only in limited quantities for the local market or under contract to other sauce producers. The Sharps contacted various growers and began horticultural experimentation with the habaneros, which, like other peppers, are susceptible to phytophthora wilt and viral diseases in the tropics, where the rainfall can be 100 inches per year or more.

  In order to standardize the color in their habaneros, which can vary from orange to purple at maturity, only the reddest pods are selected, and those seeds are spaced for plants three feet apart in rows four feet apart. The habanero plants grow about one year before producing pods and reach a height of four feet or more. They are perennial and produce pods constantly for about three years before yields are reduced. Then the plants are removed and the rows replanted with seeds from the reddest pods available. In 1988, the Sharps had about five acres of habaneros under cultivation but expected to double that as export demand for Melinda’s sauce increased. It takes about seven pounds of habaneros to produce about five gallons of hot sauce.

  Marie sold the US rights to Melinda’s Hot Sauce to the Figueroa Brothers, who came out with numerous hot sauces with the same brand name. Then Marie renamed her sauce Marie Sharp’s Hot Sauce for sales in the United States.

  HABANEROS IN YUCATÁN

  The story of the habanero in Yucatán has as much to do with distinctions of class as it does with heat and aroma. The habanero is beloved by the indigenous Mayas, who look down their noses at jalapeños and serranos. But on the other hand, so the story goes, the Mexicans of European descent dislike the habanero and regard it as a lowly Mayan pepper with too much perfume. Amal Naj, who traveled in Yucatán while researching his book Peppers, notes: “I quickly sensed that the habanero in a way symbolized for the Maya their fierce independence within Mexico and that the jalapeño symbolized the European Mexican, the invader.” In reality, of course, the jalapeño is probably the older pepper variety in Mexico, since it was developed in prehistoric times; many experts believe that the habanero is a fairly recent introduction.

  In modern Mayan communities, bac
kyard habanero plots are associated with nearly every household, where they often grow as perennial plants. There is some commercial growing; about 500 farmers grow habaneros on a scant 600 acres in the Mexican part of the Yucatán Peninsula. About 2,500 tons of fresh pods are harvested each year, and 75 percent of that is used in fresh form, mostly combined into a salsa with lime juice and salt as the salsa xnipec. Twenty-two percent of the crop is processed into sauces and the remaining 3 percent is used for seed. The pods are graded according to weight, with the first category weighing over 10 grams, the second 7.5 to 10 grams, and the third 5.0 to 7.5 grams.

  More than a decade ago, I spoke at a habanero conference in Mérida hosted by Dr. Tomas Gonzalez Estrada, who then was a researcher and habanero breeder at the Scientific Research Center of Yucatán (CICY). He drove us to various habanero fields and processing plants, not to mention some great restaurants specializing in habanero dishes. He told me that the habanero pepper is one of the main agriculture commodities grown in the Yucatán Peninsula. Usually, its pods are sold fresh; however, the current demand for high-quality habanero dried pods, powder, and mash exceeds the supply, and this has resulted in a rush to grow more habaneros in the US, Central and South America, and the Caribbean. Pod quality in terms of color, aroma, flavor, and pungency is very important for this crop. The habanero pepper grown in Yucatán has an international reputation for being a high-quality hot pepper with a bright orange color, high pungency with a special flavor, a typical aroma, and a long shelf life. This is what the growers and processors are trying to preserve in Yucatán today.