Coming to New Mexico This Summer?
Here are some tips.

The cuisine called Mexican Food is sweeping the country. And, it is becoming more authentic. In 1950, I worked in Wisconsin for the summer. I once ordered a bowl of chili in a Wisconsin restaurant and was served what I considered a bowl of vegetable soup with a dash of chili powder. Today, in most of the U.S., a similar order would bring you something we call Texas chili... a dish made with beans, ground beef, and varying amounts of chili seasoning.

Actually, the name Mexican Food is, in itself, not authentic. It should accurately be called Southwest Food. While it is served in northern Mexico, other parts of that nation never heard of an enchilada, and many areas prefer seafood. In fact. one of the best fresh seafood dinners I ever ate was served in a beach side restaurant in Acapulco.

Back to New Mexico, where Southwest dishes are so popular there is a "Mexican Restaurant" on every other street corner, our state legislature actually passed a resolution declaring the Official State Question to be "Red or Green?". It is asked at every Mexican restaurant to determine if you want your meal seasoned with red chile or green chile. And, yes, in New Mexico we do use the Spanish spelling... C-H-I-L-E. Chili refers to that brown stuff from Texas - which we also serve, but more often than not, you will be served true Southwest chile, which contains neither beans or ground beef.

However, the Official Question has given way to a new version... "Red, Green or Christmas?". It seems a lot of us just can't decide if we prefer red or green chile, so we ask for both... red on one side, green on the other... now called "Christmas".

Sometimes you will hear a diner ask his server "Which is hotter?" That is because there are a lot of different chile varieties grown in the state. Green chile, which all chile peppers are before they ripen, ranges from a variety named Barker (which is too hot even for me, and I love hot chile), to Big Jim which I find to be not hot at all.

After chiles turn red they are dried, ground or crushed, and used for seasoning in numerous ways. Again, some species are much hotter than others, and if you are a new customer in a given restaurant, you won't know which kind of chiles they use.

Someone came up with what we call Scoville Heat Units (SHU) to rate the heat of a given chile variety. A common jalapeno chile measures about 10,000 SHU, while some New Mexico green chiles measure only about 1,500 SHU.

Since chiles are an important agricultural crop in New Mexico, New Mexico State University (an agricultural school) takes chile growing seriously and even has a Chile Pepper Institute, to help chile farmers grow varieties which are more drought resistant and more resistant to fungus and insects.

Abot two years ago, experts from the Institute discovered a chile variety in the northeast part of India. This variety, known as Bhut Jolokia, measures over one million SHU!

That's 100 times hotter than a jalapeno! Paul Bosland, director of the Institute, has even developed a hot sauce called "Holy Jolokia", which is to be sampled in moderation.

So, maybe a better question for your restaurant server would be, "Are you serving Bhut Jolokias?". Don't be surprised, however, if they answer as a young waitress recently answered me, "Oh, gosh... I just started first year Spanish and I don't understand that", even though the name comes from India and is not Spanish.