In article ,
Christopher Norton writes:
| The message
| from (Nick Maclaren) contains these words:
|
| Jalapenos? They are scarcely hotter than many "sweet" peppers!
|
| Yes, I can imagine variation within them - there is a chance that
| the commercial strains have been bred for the wimpish USA market.
|
| The nation that brought us the chilli cookoff? I`ve had it on good
| authority that chilli is somewhat of a national culture especially down
| near the border with mexico. However, I do not have first hand knowledge
| on this.

I have never been right near the border, but my limited experience
with Texan Tex-Mex food is that it is pretty lukewarm, by UK Thai
standards. I had chilli in one hotel, and it was disgusting - take
mince, tomato paste, salt, monosodium glutamate and kidney beans,
in that order of quantity, and stew until done. I failed to detect
any chilli through the salt and monosodium glutamate and abandoned
the mess as inedible.

I can witness from considerably more experience that California's
use of chillis is generally even more cautious - when I worked there,
some colleagues warned me about ordering extra jalapeno and chilli
on the hottest pizza and were astounded that I ate the jalapenos
whole and on their own. The one Texan merely grinned.

| I think it was you Nick that said you were disappointed with Hab`s? My
| only time of growing them were described as eating fire so you may wish
| to class yourself as having an asbestos mouth. 8-))

As I have said before, I am a genuine colonial, born in the last
days of Empire (over which the sun never sets, naturally) :-)

You could be right ....


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.