To Hatch Chile or Not to Hatch Chile, There Really is No Question

Are the Hatch, New Mexico chile signs the only ones you should follow?

All around the Denver area, signs are popping up for fresh roasted green chiles. It is still early in the season, but I decided to go check out a few stands and markets before I buy and, as I was doing so, I came across a sign for Hatch, New Mexico chile. I have purchased and cooked with green chiles from Hatch in the past and never understood the hype. This occasion inspired me to do a little research, and I found that the celebrity status of Hatch green chile is, indeed, mostly high-quality hype.

I dug up an article written in the Westword (Denver’s alternative newspaper and a source of great journalism time and time again) back in 1999 about the hullaballoo created by chile merchants around the Denver area.  A few merchants decided to make Hatch chile THE chile to buy and developed a not-so-friendly rivalry out of it, driving some merchants out of business and consumers to seek out Hatch chile, though they had no idea why.

In The Complete Chile Pepper Book by David DeWitt and Paul W. Bosland, the authors write about the fame of Hatch chile and the counterfeiting that chile growers have confessed to doing in order to sell more chiles. The growers felt that they had to submit to the hype to keep sales up.

I also found that the growers in Hatch have a pretty proud history and, no doubt, work to grow the best chiles possible. Hatch has a huge chile festival over the Labor Day weekend and is formally declared the “Chile Capital of the World”.  I don’t doubt that they are great at growing chiles, but why limit yourself to only buying chiles grown from one place before deciding what tastes best to you?

The moral of this story is that if you set out to buy “Hatch, New Mexico Chile,” shop with caution. Ask the merchant, if their chiles are actually grown in Hatch, New Mexico, or if they are New Mexico chiles grown from seed elsewhere. The chances are that many markets and chile stand employees won’t know. Keep your eye on the price, and ask if you can sample before you buy. Ultimately, you will cook with the flavor, not the name of the town in which the chile was grown.