The Jalapeno Man

In the produce department at King Soopers, I saw a man that reminded me of the Marlboro Man. Tall, handsome, white western shirt and cowboy boots. He was touching the Jalapeno peppers and only picked out certain ones. I looked up at him and said, "The peppers are not as hot now as they used to be," and he looked at me without smiling. He looked at me with dark brown eyes through beautiful long eyelashes. He either didn't speak English or he thought I was criticizing him for touching all the peppers. I smiled and said in Spanish, "No estan tan picante como antes."

He cracked a pepper in two and showed me, "Cuando tienen amarillo, esos son los picosos." (When you see a yellow line, that is when they are hot.) He sniffed
the pepper, placed the pepper near my nose and said, "Este no esta picoso." I got a whiff of the pepper and it smelled hot to me; made my nose tickle and I had to suppress a sneeze! He told me that the yellow streak is a guarantee that the pepper is hot!  I have never noticed anything yellow on the inside of a pepper. I always thought it was the veins that made the pepper hot. A friend told me that seeds made the pepper hot. It really does not matter because I don't think Jalapeños are as hot as they used to be in the past! In the picture, using his logic, can you pick the hot pepper?

I thanked him and since he looked to be about forty years younger than I am, I continued on my way to finish my shopping. I suppose if I had been younger, closer to his age, I would have continued asking many more questions about the peppers to prolong the conversation with the handsome stranger!

At home I cut open a pepper. No yellow. I ended up cutting four peppers until I found one with a trace of yellow. Maybe the yellow is a sign of hotness but the other three peppers I cut open did not have the yellow strip and they were still hot. It seems to me that in the past, any Jalapeño pepper was extremely hot, yet lately I have been able to eat a whole jalapeño without having it burn my tongue!

"If you handle a pepper hot,

don't ever touch your eye.

Pain will make you want to die

My, oh my, oh my"

E. Moscoso