What's on the dinner menus?
Hatch Chile Pepper Crab Cakes with a baked potato here. I will miss the annual August/September hatch chile season here.
New one on me. What's a Hatch Chile Pepper?
A large pepper grown in New Mexico some are hot and some are pretty mild.
Hatch chile refers to varieties of species of the genus Capsicum which are grown in the Hatch Valley, an area stretching north and south along the Rio Grande from Arrey, New Mexico, in the north to Tonuco Mountain to the southeast of Hatch, New Mexico. The soil and growing conditions in the Hatch Valley create a unique terroir which contributes to the flavor of chile grown there. Most of the varieties of chile cultivated in the Hatch Valley have been developed at New Mexico State University over the last 130 years.
Hatch chile can be purchased locally in many parts of the Southwest, and is distributed throughout the United States by companies such as World Variety Produce. Other distributors sometimes use the "Hatch" name, but do not actually grow and process their chile in the Hatch Valley. To protect Hatch and other New Mexican growers, state legislators passed a 2012 law protecting and prohibiting the "New Mexican" identity brand for state grown peppers. This law does not extend to chiles grown outside the state. Chiles grown around the town are marketed under the name of the town, and are often sold fresh-roasted in New Mexico and neighboring states in the early autumn.
