How did you get your start breeding new chiles?

Bosland: Growing up in San Diego in the 1960s, I was reading a Boy Scout magazine when I noticed a contest put on by the Burpee seed company that offered $10,000 to the first person who could create a white marigold flower. At the time, watch companies used radioactive materials to make the hands luminous, so I scraped it onto a flower to change its color. I wasn’t successful and was lucky the radiation levels were low, although I do have three arms. [Laughs] But that started my fascination with plant breeding, which eventually led me to chiles.

Why is chile so entwined with New Mexico?

Chile peppers are native to the western hemisphere, where they were eaten for centuries by the Aztecs and others. The Spanish are believed to have brought the chile to northern New Mexico, where the crop was introduced to the Pueblos. 

The first horticulturist at NMSU was Fabián García, a student from southern Mexico who was hired in 1913 to find new crops for farmers in our state. Looking around, he realized that the only people eating chile peppers were Hispanic, and decided to make a milder version that could be popular with everyone. In the 1920s, he released the New Mexico No. 9 chile, which became a hit. Our state’s chile industry was off and running. 

Next, Roy Nakayama, a local and the son of Japanese immigrants, became an NMSU researcher. He helped to develop cultivars including NuMex Big Jim in 1975, the world’s largest green chile and perfect for chile rellenos, and Española Improved, a chile grown on the International Space Station in 2021.

Other pioneers include Fabiola Cabeza de Vaca. Born on a ranch in La Liendre, she established agricultural extension programs in Hispanic and Pueblo communities, and was the first to document the U-shaped fried taco shell, helping to bring New Mexican food and chiles to the nation.

It sounds like the story of chile is the multicultural story of New Mexico.

Exactly, but chiles are not just a New Mexico story. It’s fun because people from different cultures across the world, from Thailand to Peru, will visit our garden at NMSU and say, “Oh, that’s my chile pepper.” And that makes us in New Mexico very proud.

New Mexicans love their chiles. What are some things they need to know?

Today we have two types. The green chile has a thick, meaty flesh, while the red chile has a thin flesh that dries easily. We also produce a variety that has no heat, paprika, which is now the number-one red food-coloring agent in the United States.

The rule of thumb in New Mexico is that we begin to harvest our green chiles in the southern part of the state from the last week of July through August. If the weather cools in September, the chiles will start to turn red. This is a stage most people don’t know about called pinto, where they’re kind of red and green at the same time. And we may keep harvesting chiles into December, drying them and grinding them up. 

And then in northern New Mexico there’s a whole different type of chile pepper called the Dixon, which is a smaller pod originally brought by the Spanish. It ripens earlier because the season’s shorter up there, resulting in a different flavor. 

The rocky soil and altitude in New Mexico make the chile peppers taste unique. It’s the terroir, just like with wine. The stress in these growing conditions makes the chile peppers hotter and more flavorful. They would taste milder if you were growing them in, say, San Diego.

Chiles have health benefits, too, right? 

The answer to that begins with a question. Why do we still eat chiles, despite feeling pain? My theory is because it’s a medicinal plant. First, it’s a way to kill pain. The Aztecs, for instance, wrote about using chile peppers to relieve toothaches. When we eat a chile pepper, our bodies produce endorphins to block the discomfort from the heat, so it’s still used today in ointments as a pain reliever for muscles.

There’s probably a thousand different medicinal uses for the chile. It helps digestion and provides vitamins and minerals. One study even found that people who eat chiles appear to live longer. 

Psychologists say we’re attracted to chile peppers because they’re like a thrilling roller coaster ride. It’s going to scare you—the heat will burn—but you know you’re safe.

Chile peppers are just a fascinating crop. It’s a spice, a vegetable, an ornamental, and a medicinal plant. Few plants can claim all those things.

And it has a long history, too.

The Aztec empire had different chiles for different dishes. They had already developed the serrano, the jalapeño, and other types to pair with things like frogs and plants. So yeah, humans have been cooking with them for a while.

Why did you start the Chile Pepper Institute?

In the early nineties, there was basically no internet. People from around the world were constantly sending us mail or calling us, asking to get New Mexico chile seeds, and we used to send them packets for free. In addition, folks were showing up at NMSU to see our chile peppers. Then one day we got 100 requests for free seeds and said, “OK, we need to formalize this.” So in 1992, I founded the Chile Pepper Institute, with the mission to educate the world about chile peppers. We were basically working out of a closet, but people still came to see things.

At the institute, we started a teaching garden with 150 different varieties of chile peppers from around the world. It’s free, it’s open to the public, and people can walk through it on a self-guided tour. We sell T-shirts, caps, and even our own hot sauce, Holy Jolokia, made from India’s bhut jolokia, also known as the ghost pepper.

Does working at the Chile Pepper Institute mean you have the toughest taste buds on the planet?

The interesting thing is that we all differ in our ability to withstand heat. At the institute, we discovered 24 unique alkaloids that cause different levels of heat in chiles. So I came up with a heat profile consisting of five different characteristics. First, how fast do you sense the heat? Second, how long does the heat linger? Third, is it a sharp heat (prickly) or a flat heat, like a paintbrush? Fourth, where do you sense the heat in your mouth—the tip of your tongue, your lips, your mid-palate, or the back of the throat? Fifth, of course, is the heat level itself, which is measured in Scoville units.

Wow, so different chiles impact different parts of the mouth, making them taste different?

Yes. Jalapeños, for example, are felt on the tip of your tongue, while habaneros are at the back of the throat. And different cultures have different preferences. Once, we were exporting a red chile powder to Asia, but they kept saying it wasn’t good. We couldn’t figure it out, until we discovered that Asian consumers prefer a sharp heat, and that the one we’d been sending was a flat-heat varietal! So we created red chile powder out of a Sandia chile that had a sharp heat, and they loved it. Today we ship millions of pounds of that red chile powder to Asia to use in kimchi. Heat preference has a very strong cultural attachment.

According to our studies, milk is the best way to reduce heat, because it has a protein that attaches to your taste receptors, stopping the “you’re getting hot” messages to your brain. The next best way to dull pain is sugar, followed by bread. So I always say we’re covered in New Mexico with our two traditional desserts: flan and sopaipillas.

What does retirement look like for you?

I’m busy. I still get up at six and start my day. I’m the editor in chief of some national horticultural journals, so I’m constantly up-to-date on the latest chile pepper research. I’m also writing a book about chile peppers, tentatively titled The Chile Man Chronicles, about my adventures and discoveries over the years, and am still helping to develop new chile varieties—new colors and ones with greater health aspects. And then of course I do some gardening and enjoy playing with my grandson.

What’s your secret for aging well?

Everything in moderation. And of course eating chile peppers.

Are there particular benefits to eating chile as we age?

As we get older, our taste buds become less sensitive. So chile peppers are a healthy way to season a dish and make it taste better. I just published a book, The Official Cookbook of the Chile Pepper Institute, with over 50 great recipes from around the world.

Do you have a favorite chile dish?

Chile peppers are like my children: Each one is unique, and I love them all. I will say that the best way to test a chef is to ask them to make a chile relleno. That’s one of the most difficult dishes to cook, because it can either be heavy and greasy or light and fluffy. 

Every Thanksgiving, I also invite international students over and have what I call a “hot luck” dinner. I roast one turkey the traditional way in the oven, and then smoke another turkey and cover it in chile pepper jelly. It’s a fun, spicy twist on the seasonal dish.

Any words of wisdom from all your years in the chile world?

Count your blessings, but remember that your dreams have dreams, too. I’ve got four or five more books I want to write, but don’t know if I’ll ever get to them. And that’s OK.

I’ll always be thinking of new ways to get people to eat chiles. 

Learn more and sample some chiles at the Chile Pepper Institute, at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces (cpi.nmsu.edu).