[CH] Turbetti farms

Eric Murray (ericm@lne.com)
Mon, 17 Sep 2001 09:50:39 -0700 

Saturday my wife and I, and a friend, drove a couple hours
to Turbetti's pepper farm outside Stockton.

They have roughly seven acres of peppers.   When we arrived
around noon, there were a few customers about.  The barn
held some bushels of small green hot peppers (jals, etc) and
lots of red peppers.  But we'd come for the green, which
were under an awning next to the roasters.   After tasting
some different peppers, we decided on a bushel of "california longs"
and one of sandias.  Our friend Tim, who's lived in New Mexico, got
a sack (two bushels) of Sandias for himself.

They didn't have many bushels picked already, but there were some
workers hanging around who were dispatched to go pick some more
bushels... so the chiles are pretty freshly picked.

Mr. Turbetti roasted the peppers for us.  He's got 4 roasting
machines.  These are drums made of steel mesh, roughly the size of
30 or 55 gallon drums, with large gas jets to provide heat.
The roasting took a couple minutes, then Mr. Turbetti let the
roasted peppers out into trays below the drums to cool for a while
before packing them in paper and plastic bags.

Of course the roasting peppers smelled wonderful!  As we were
standing around, some more customers showed up, keeping Mr. Turbetti
and his wife pretty busy.  We chatted with the other customers, who
were all middle-aged chicanos.... mostly New Mexico ex-pats, which
was an excelent sign.   We talked chile recipies and New Mexico
geography.  [one woman said that chiles con queso was really good
so I asked what sort of cheese she used, thinking that I'd get
a clue about the 20 different white mexican cheeses that're
available, but she just said that she uses jack cheese... I guess
I'll just have to buy a selection of queso and find out myself]

When we got home repacked the chiles into freezer bags, keeping some
out for immediate consumption.  These chiles peeled much easier than
chiles do when I roast them myself on the grill, maybe I need a grill
that produces more heat?  Of course we were starving, so we made
a late lunch of chile quesadillas.  The california longs are fairly
mild big green chiles, and the Sandias are somewhat hot but not very.

I'm looking forward to some good chile sauce this winter.


Eric