Backstory: New Mexico's cult of the chile

Mayor Judd Nordyke suggested that there were more chile stands at the festival this year because rain damage to crops and homes have made locals more strapped for cash. The irony, he noted, is that he recalls people at prayer meetings earlier in the summer asking for rain. "It just didn't need to come all at once," he added.

***

At the festival, chiles are literally in the air – the smell of fresh roasting peppers spins out of hand-turned gas roasters. Every few feet is a stand festooned with bright chains of red and green ristras. Tourists are like hummingbirds – stopping to buzz around the iconic bunches and buy packaged chile staples such as chile powder, salsa, chile jellies, chile oils, and even chile peanut brittle. And where chile can be eaten in the form of chile-on-a-stick (a pod stuffed with cheese, then deep-fried) and chile chips (deep-fried chile pieces) the lineup of the hungry is anxious and impenetrable enough to be more like a New York queue than a laid-back Southwestern one.

Amid the pungent array, it's not hard to separate locals from the tourists. Locals are more casually dressed, and many tote around another regional figure – the Chihuahua, which is clearly the leading canine here. One woman is pushing hers around in a cart with the sign "Cujo."

At June Rutherford's booth, customers are teeming. Ground to powder and packaged in 1 pound to 2 pound Ziploc bags, "June's Special Hot Red Chile" sells well, as does her chile knowledge. She's been at this game most of her 82 years – as she puts it, "My folks was chile farmers." Her father, Joseph Franzoy, was the first chile farmer in Hatch Valley in 1915. The Big Jim green chile, which June helped develop, is named after her late husband.

Mrs. Rutherford and three of her brothers still farm here – and, yes, she still gets out in the fields. The most momentous chile development she recalls was when the North American Free Trade Agreement took effect in 1994. The industry has never been the same. She says she used to export large amounts of chiles to California. After NAFTA she sells none there.

Most pods are still harvested by hand, so cheaper labor in other countries is threatening the Chile Capital of the World. Since NAFTA, the US has imported increasing amounts of cheaper foreign chiles, particularly from Mexico. The folks at New Mexico State University have tried to perfect a chile-picking machine, but so far it's not efficient enough to make a difference, and growers are still trying to figure out how to compete.

***

Queen Alexandria, still in boots and gown, is lugging a jug of milk toward the long folding table under the festival's airport hanger. She's preparing for the under-18 chile-eating contest, and milk is the best bet for cutting chile heat. Four contestants face the seated audience and hunker down over paper plates that hold five roasted hot chiles. The announcer yells "go!" and seeds and juice fly as Alexandria tries to stuff down the familiar fruit. But she's not fast enough to beat the only boy at the table, an athletic high schooler who raises his fists in the air to audience cheers.

Alexandria smiles and takes a big swig of milk. She doesn't consider herself a loser. To be queen where chile is king, she says, is something "no Berridge has ever done.... It's a huge, huge thing – such an honor."

Page: 1 | 2