6 Things New Mexicans Do During Roasting Season That Out-of-Staters Never See

“Red or green?” may be New Mexico’s official state question, but the answer says little about how deep the state’s chile tradition goes.

These are the things New Mexicans do during roasting season that out-of-staters rarely see.

1. Peeling Chile Around the Kitchen Table

New Mexicans haul their roasted bags home still warm, and the work that matters starts once the kitchen door closes.

Family and friends gather around the table for hours, peeling blistered skins, pulling seeds, and packing pounds of chile into freezer bags.

Some peel and seed every pod before it goes in the freezer.

Others just bag the pods whole, skin and all, and sort out the mess later when they’re ready to cook.

2. Running a Second Freezer Just for Chile

New Mexico’s chile habit doesn’t stop at one freezer once roasting season gets serious.

New Mexico Magazine’s longtime food writer says many households end up keeping two freezers running once roasting season gets underway.

One freezer holds everyday food.

The second exists only to hold a year’s worth of chile.

The second freezer usually lives in a garage or a spare closet, and it stays packed through winter, spring, and the start of the next roasting season.

3. Shipping Chile to Family Who Moved Away

New Mexicans who move out of state don’t leave the chile habit behind, and neither does the family who stayed.

The Santa Fe New Mexican told the story of Jaime Dean, a Santa Fe native.

Dean packed a backpack of frozen Hatch green chile for a 2015 flight to New York.

He counted on frozen gel packs to keep it solid until he landed.

They didn’t.

The chile thawed somewhere over the Midwest, and Dean turned the mishap into a subscription service that ships chile to New Mexicans who’ve moved away.

It doesn’t always survive the trip, and the person who shipped it hears about it the moment someone opens the box.

4. Growing Chile From a Family’s Saved Seed

Some New Mexico families never buy their green chile from a stand at all.

In mountain villages like Chimayó, families grow chile from seed saved off last year’s best pods, a lineage that never reaches a commercial stand.

New Mexico State University’s Extension Service has traced that practice through more than a dozen northern villages.

Each keeps a landrace line named for its village, among them Velarde, Jemez Pueblo, and Chimayó’s neighbors.

Chile grown this way is genetically distinct from the commercial Hatch crop sold at roadside stands.

That seed stays inside the family that saved it, generation after generation.

5. Lending Out Freezer Space to Neighbors

Some small New Mexico growers don’t plant their fields to sell at all.

A backyard crop or a few rows on family land is often enough to keep a household stocked, with any extra going straight to whoever’s freezer still has room.

The harvest stays close by.

When one household’s harvest outgrows its freezer, a neighbor offers a few spare shelves until the extra bags find room.

6. Ristras for Eating, Not Display

Not every New Mexico ristra hanging out front is meant to be touched.

Many of the ristras sold at roadside stands get a coat of lacquer or spray paint to keep their color from fading.

Once that happens, the chile inside stops being food.

Families who string a ristra for themselves late in the season skip that step on purpose.

They buy a sack of fresh red chile, tie a working ristra by hand, and hang it to dry in a garage or back room instead of a porch.

Once it cures, someone in the house pulls that strung chile apart pod by pod all winter for stews, sauces, and enchiladas.

That routine plays out indoors, long after anyone who admired the ristra out front has gone home.

The Chile Rivalries Households Never Settle

New Mexicans argue about more than which chile is better, red or green, the question the state legislature made official in 1996.

Households argue just as hard over which valley grew the chile in the first place.

New Mexico Magazine food writer Cheryl Alters Jamison has followed that rivalry for years.

She compares chile from the fields around Hatch against smaller crops from Dixon, Lemitar, and Puerto de Luna.

The debate over which valley holds better flavor rarely ends politely.

Nobody switches sides easily.

The rivalry follows New Mexicans to restaurants too, where loyalists split over whose green chile sauce sets the standard.

Jamison names Charlie’s in Las Vegas, Horseman’s Haven in Santa Fe, and Katrinah’s East Mountain Grill in Edgewood among the kitchens with a following that won’t budge.

Chope’s in La Mesa and Nellie’s or Dick’s in Las Cruces pull in the same kind of loyalty farther south.

Every New Mexico Chile Variety, Sorted by Heat

The Season’s Green-to-Red Turn

New Mexico’s roasting season doesn’t end all at once.

Pods left on the vine keep ripening after the green harvest slows, turning from green to a deep red by late September and into October.

That’s when fresh red chile starts showing up next to the last of the green, right as families are finishing their ristras and topping off that second freezer.