I don’t know why I do it, but I keep reading packages. The latest to catch my eye was the latest flavor of Miss Vickie’s potato chips. I couldn’t pass up the idea of “Hand Picked Jalapeno” I just had to find out what made it so very special.
I’m a pepper freak and have every type of pepper I could find in the garden shops in the area, and as I’ve posted, they have been producing like crazy – and everything there is hand-picked. But honestly, in the peppers, I’ve never noticed much different between the flavor of the hand picked ones from my garden and the ones I purchase in the off-season from the supermarket.
So I bought a bag.
I was disappointed to find that there was no email address for Miss Vickie* so I could ask her about her hand-picked jalapeno secrets. However, the bag did offer some tips such as, “picking the jalapenos by hand when they are perfectly ripe.”
I think she meant to be talking about the tomato that goes with the jalapeno in salsa. Jalapenos when “ripe” either become woody or mushy and sweet.
I was also a little baffled at how the pepper went from “perfectly ripe” to “jalapeno powder.” Something gets lost in that translation. I want to take a tour of the process to see just what they do to preserve the hand picked goodness. The powdering process seems to violently diminish the gentle care of hand picking.
Despite all this – yeah, they’re good!
*Miss Vickie is a little sister to Frito Lay
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