Mexico Hot and Bothered Over Jalapeno Scare
The epidemic salmonella strain, identified as Salmonella Saintpaul, has now made 1,251 people sick and has placed more than 229 people in United States hospitals. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration stated that it found a jalapeno pepper contaminated with the salmonella strain and warned the U.S. public not to eat jalapeno peppers. But the Mexican public is jumping to the defense of their crop.
The warning has done very little to stop the consumption of the jalapeno, both in the United States where the jalapeno pepper is enjoying increased popularity, and in Mexico where the jalapeno is a staple of everyday cuisine.
Jalapenos are among the oldest domesticated crops in the Americas and were harvested before the Spanish conquest in the 1500s. Jalapenos got their name from the eastern Mexican city of Jalapa. The ancient Aztec royalty enjoyed to drink concoctions of chile and chocolate and Mayan culture attempted to cure everything from dysentery, to asthma, to vertigo with spicy powders.
“Mexico has one of the best cuisines in the world. In the United States they don’t understand, they have hamburgers and hot dogs. That’s not a tradition, that’s just junk. In the United States, they have weak stomachs, everything makes them sick,” said Pedro Garcia, 46, a school administrator.
Mexico’s agriculture ministry believes that the salmonella strain has never been found in Mexico and points the blame to the Texas packing factory where the pepper was processed.
The jalapeno pepper is a major export for Mexico, especially to the United States. Over 247,000 acres of peppers are grown in Mexico, with 80 percent of them being jalapenos. Exports have risen between 10 percent and 15 percent every year over the past decade.
Inspectors are stopping truck loads of the 100 tons or more of peppers crossing the United States border from Mexico every day, which raises the risk of produce being left to rot before the product reaches stores, said Jose Manuel Gochicoa who runs the chile growers’ association in Mexico, which is the world’s biggest producer of fresh chiles. “By creating this bottleneck at the border, people are just going to stop exporting,” states Gochicoa.
In spite of the outbreak, jalapenos have become increasingly popular in the U.S., in both Mexican restaurants and in supermarkets. Dozens of types of chiles, some which cause sweating and crying, have become a cooking trend in the United States. “It’s the new fashion,” said Gochicoa.
View the original story on MSNBC
The warning has done very little to stop the consumption of the jalapeno, both in the United States where the jalapeno pepper is enjoying increased popularity, and in Mexico where the jalapeno is a staple of everyday cuisine.
Jalapenos are among the oldest domesticated crops in the Americas and were harvested before the Spanish conquest in the 1500s. Jalapenos got their name from the eastern Mexican city of Jalapa. The ancient Aztec royalty enjoyed to drink concoctions of chile and chocolate and Mayan culture attempted to cure everything from dysentery, to asthma, to vertigo with spicy powders.
“Mexico has one of the best cuisines in the world. In the United States they don’t understand, they have hamburgers and hot dogs. That’s not a tradition, that’s just junk. In the United States, they have weak stomachs, everything makes them sick,” said Pedro Garcia, 46, a school administrator.
Mexico’s agriculture ministry believes that the salmonella strain has never been found in Mexico and points the blame to the Texas packing factory where the pepper was processed.
The jalapeno pepper is a major export for Mexico, especially to the United States. Over 247,000 acres of peppers are grown in Mexico, with 80 percent of them being jalapenos. Exports have risen between 10 percent and 15 percent every year over the past decade.
Inspectors are stopping truck loads of the 100 tons or more of peppers crossing the United States border from Mexico every day, which raises the risk of produce being left to rot before the product reaches stores, said Jose Manuel Gochicoa who runs the chile growers’ association in Mexico, which is the world’s biggest producer of fresh chiles. “By creating this bottleneck at the border, people are just going to stop exporting,” states Gochicoa.
In spite of the outbreak, jalapenos have become increasingly popular in the U.S., in both Mexican restaurants and in supermarkets. Dozens of types of chiles, some which cause sweating and crying, have become a cooking trend in the United States. “It’s the new fashion,” said Gochicoa.
View the original story on MSNBC
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