New Mexicans are seeing green: it’s chile roasting season.
Roasting season means business for farms and grocery stores as natives and visitors alike flock to get their fix of the spicy pepper.
Lee Romero, who is one of three owners of the Fruit Basket stores in Albuquerque, enjoys the extra business.
The green chile has been roasting since mid-August, and Romero said this year the harvest has been especially good because of additional labor to help pick at the chile farms. Roasting season ends after all the green chile has turned red, been harvested and roasted, which is around the end of October, Romero said.
Romero said he buys the majority of his green chile in Hatch, N.M.
“We buy mostly chile that’s grown in Hatch,“ Romero said. “We usually try and buy it from the same farmer every year because you know what you’re getting and you know where it comes from.”
Romero said that between the three stores, each day he and his brother’s operations handle about 700 bags of chile, and each bag weighs between 30 and 40 pounds.
“We get a truck every day, and now we’re even getting fresh red chile, people like the roasted red chile quite a bit,” Romero said. “A lot of people buy it red and they’ll take it home and de-stem it and then boil it, put it in a blender and make a sauce out of it.”
Green chile is a big deal in New Mexico, and it’s popularity has grown to other parts of the country. New Mexico is the top destination to buy chile for out-of-towners, Romero said.
“We have people who come from Dallas and they’ll call us up and they’ll say ‘Hey, can we have 20 sacks roasted?’” Romero said. “They’ll come load it up and then go back to Texas.”
The Fruit Basket offers chile in varying colors and spice levels. They have mild, medium, hot and extra hot.
“We do get some out of Artesia, and the extra hot we try to get out of there because some people like that chile from Artesia,” Romero said. “Usually a mild or medium chile will have a lot more meat, it is bigger and thicker. The real hot stuff has thinner skin and is thinner-meated.”
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Student Travis Townsend said he likes to grow his own chile. He plants different varieties so he can pick and choose whichever chile he is in the mood for.
“I can definitely taste the difference between my green chile and a store’s chile,” Townsend said. “It depends on what kinds of chile you’re eating. You can get Big Jims or Sandias. The Big Jims are usually a little bit bigger and meatier.”
Townsend said he also roasts his chile himself.
“It’s something I got into with my dad because we always had a garden at my house,” he said. “The first thing I cooked on a grill was green chile around the age of nine.”
The actual chile roasting at the Fruit Basket only takes about three minutes in a large, rotating, barreled, green chile roaster, Romero said.
“Most people that (roast chile) at home, they’ll just roast it on a grill,” he said. “But you have to be real careful because they blister real easy. A lot of people like to get friends together and do a barbecue and roast a batch or so.”
The Fruit Basket
3821 12th St. NW
6346 4th St. NW
8405 4th St. NW
Roasted chile $25 per bag
What kind of green chile do you like and where do you get it?
Travis Townsend: I like hot and medium green chile. And one of my favorite places to get a good hot green chile is probably Sadie’s (Restaurant).
Sandy Hernandez: I like to get my green chile from Albertsons. I’m from Texas but I never had it as much as I did when I moved to New Mexico.
Matt Gordon: I buy my green chile from a guy up in Santa Fe who brings it in on a truck from Hatch. My favorite place to get green chile is at Tomasita’s in Santa Fe.
Helen Trost: I get mine from any grocery store I happen to be shopping at. El Patio is really close to campus and they have really good green chile.
