Chili pepper shortage dampens the heat of Indian cuisine

BY JEANETTE SETTEMBRE 

 

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

 

Thursday, June 11, 2015, 2:00 AM

 

The spice isn’t right!

A federal ban on certain green chili peppers has sent shockwaves through the Indian restaurant world — with chefs from Curry Hill to Jackson Heights scrambling to find fiery alternatives and customers crying spiceless tears over their weak chicken tikka masala and vindaloo.

“It wasn’t anywhere close to spicy,” bemoaned Anish Samuel, 34, as he left Dhaba restaurant on Lexington Ave. the other day after eating a dispiriting plate of lamb biryani.

Samuel’s hot mess is the direct result of a March ban on produce imports from the Dominican Republic after the island nation was infiltrated by Mediterranean fruit flies — a ravenous pest that can destroy billions of dollars in agriculture.

The last major infestation in the U.S. was in 1989 — and federal officials have long memories. They also, apparently, have little regard for the sanctity of Indian cuisine, which depends of several varieties of the Capsicum annuum pepper, all known by one name in Indian food circles: “the green chili pepper.”

The import ban created a shortage that sent the cost of this hot commodity skyrocketing — from a little more than $1 to $15 per pound in some places. Many cooks are switching to substitutes like jalapenos, which is much less spicy, or habaneros, which aren’t even in the same pepper family.

Customers can’t be fooled.

“A lot of people are complaining the food is mild,” says Michelin-starred chef Hemant Mathur, who owns several Indian eateries in Curry Hill and white-tablecloth restaurants like Tulsi and serves as executive chef at Devi.

“The spice isn’t the same,” he insists. “Jalapeno is much sweeter than the green chili pepper.”

The spice in any pepper comes from the compound capsaicin, which clings to pain receptors on the tongue to produce a burning sensation. The banned chili has about 20,000 to 50,000 units of spice on the famed Scoville scale — named after pharmacist Wilbur Scoville, who created it in 1912.

Jalapenos, by comparison, have 5,000-15,000 Scoville units.

“Peppers (in Indian food) have a very quick and intense heat that goes away quickly — the jalapeno is exactly opposite. The heat builds and lingers forever,” says Danise Coon, a researcher for the Chile Pepper Institute at New Mexico State University.

“The jalapeno has a more grassy, fresh flavor profile while the small green chili pepper is more earthy, smoky and pungent,” she adds.

Mathur used to get 20 pounds of the green chilies for $45. Now he pays $150 for the same 20-pound case.

Indian grocery store The Spice Corner in Curry Hill went from paying $35 for 30 pounds of the chili to $160 for 25 pounds.

“Customers know there’s a shortage,” says Bharat Patel, the manager of India Grocers in Edison, N.J., which is now offering frozen alternatives and dried chilies such as kashmiri, a red pepper. They’re flying off the shelves in these desperate times.

Of course, it wasn’t always like this. Chili peppers were not even a part of Indian cuisine until they arrived from South America in the late 1500s. Before that New World import, black pepper gave the pungency to Indian food.

Too much time has passed to go back to that old grind, Mathur said. So with his customers craving the painful burn, Mathur is experimenting, mad scientist-style, with different blends of other spicy peppers.

“We’re thinking up new recipes,” he says, pessimistically.

With Peter Sblendorio

What is an Indian green chili pepper?

Name: Capsicum Annuum

Scoville Units: 20,000-50,000

Most common C. annuum varieties in Indian cusine: Santaka, Hontaka and Takanotsume.

Native to: South America

jsettembre@nydailynews.com

• Pickling is one of the oldest forms of food preservation, discovered at the dawn of civilization, thousands of years ago in Mesopotamia.
• North Americans prefer pickles with warts. Europeans prefer wartless pickles. Refrigerated pickles account for about 20 percent of all pickle sales.
• International Pickle Week is one of the country’s longest running food promotions –it’s been observed for more than 50 years. IPW actually runs for 10 days during the last two weeks of May.
• According to the U.S. Supreme Court, pickles are technically a “fruit” of the vine (like tomatoes), but they are generally known as a vegetable.
• Americans consume more than 2.5 billion pounds of pickles each year – that’s 20 billion pickles! And since it takes almost 4 billion pickles to reach the moon, all the pickles we eat would reach the moon and back more than 2 times!
• Pickle Packers International has its own official limerick and theme song – the Pickle Polka. The pickle got its name in the 1300s when English speaking people mispronounced William Beukelz’ name – he was a Dutch fisherman known for pickling fish.
• The phrase “in a pickle” was first introduced by Shakespeare in his play, The Tempest. The quotes read, “How cam’st thou in this pickle?” and “I have been in such a pickle�”
• On his voyage in 1492, Columbus not only discovered America, but gave peppers their name. In search of black pepper from the Orient, he assumed the spicy pods used to flavor foods in America were a form of black pepper and mistakenly called them “pimiento,” or pepper. Actually, the plants are not related at all.
• The “hot” sensation one experiences when eating pickled peppers is caused by Capsaicin. This powerful substance can be detected at one part in a trillion.
• During WWII the U.S. Government tagged 40 percent of all pickle production for the ration kits of the armed forces.
• When you eat hot peppers, the pain receptors on the tongue react and cause a physical reaction called “sweating.” You start to salivate and perspire, your nose runs, your metabolism speeds up – this is all the body’s reaction working to cool itself.
• Good pickles have an audible crunch at 10 paces. This can be measured at “crunch-off” using the “scientific” device known as the Audible Crunch Meter. Pickles that can be heard at only one pace are known as denture dills.