Archive
Every page on the site, by section
Twenty-five pages across five sections. The front page is an edit; this is the whole thing.
The pod itself — its two colours, its two seasons, its named varieties and the breeders who fixed them.
Red or Green — and What the Legislature Did About It
How New Mexico's State Question was made official in 1996 by the legislature, and what 'Christmas' means as an answer. An explainer on the question's real bureaucratic history and its older cultural roots.
Hatch Valley: Why the Ground Changes the Pod
What the Hatch Valley's altitude, soil alkalinity and dry heat actually do to capsaicin development, with reference to NMSU research. A piece about place as ingredient.
The Chimayó Chile Stayed When Everything Else Was Bred Away
The heirloom strain that Chimayó growers have saved for generations — what makes it genetically distinct from Hatch commercial varieties, and what the acequia system has to do with its survival. A piece of agricultural argument.
The Whole Town Smells Like It for a Month
What happens at a propane roasting drum — the technique, the timing, the Maillard chemistry, the chest-freezer economics — and why September is the only window. A walk-through of a single recurring event.
New Mexico No. 9, 1913
Fabián García's breeding work at the New Mexico College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts, and how a single released cultivar in 1913 set the template that all subsequent commercial breeding worked from. A short historical piece anchored to a named year and a named person.
Stacked enchiladas, posole, the Frito pie in its bag — what each dish is and where the record places it.
The Frito Pie Is Served in the Bag, and the Bag Is the Argument
The Five & Dime on the Plaza and the specific New Mexican form of Frito pie — eaten from the split corn-chip bag, not a bowl — as a case study in how a delivery format becomes the dish. The piece examines competing origin claims and settles on the documented record.
Posole Is a Corn Dish That People Keep Calling a Soup
The hominy at the centre of posole — nixtamalised corn, its pre-contact Pueblo origins, and why classifying it as soup mistakes the ingredient for the broth. An argument about taxonomy and ingredients.
Carne Adovada: What a Long Soak in Red Chile Does
How the adovada process works — the dried red chile paste, the marinating time, the cut of pork — and where it sits in the Spanish colonial livestock tradition. A piece that explains what the dish is before anything else.
Stacked, Not Rolled — and Eight Other Rules the Enchilada Sets
New Mexico's flat-stacked blue-corn enchilada as a formal departure from the rolled Tex-Mex standard — what the stack implies about the tortilla's role, the chile sauce's weight, and the egg on top. An argument with a clear position.
Sopaipillas: The Honey Is Not Optional
The fried bread that appears alongside savoury plates in New Mexico — its distinction from the South American sopaipilla, the function of the honey alongside spiced food, and its documented place in the state's table. A short explainer with a firm point of view.
The Plaza, Canyon Road, the Railyard, the Santuario — the named places that shaped how the city eats.
The Plaza Has Been the Market for Four Centuries
The Palace of the Governors portal and the vendors who have occupied it — from the Spanish colonial period through the Pueblo vendors programme documented by the Palace — as a continuous site of food and goods exchange since 1610. A historical walk-through of a single named place.
Canyon Road Was a Pueblo Trail Before It Was a Gallery Street
The pre-contact Pueblo use of the Canyon Road corridor, its function as an acequia and agricultural access route through the Spanish colonial period, and what changed when the art market arrived in the twentieth century. A place history that ends before tourism begins.
The Santuario and the Fields Around It
The Santuario de Chimayó (completed 1816) as an anchor for the agricultural valley around it — the chile plots, the acequia network and the Tewa-speaking community that farmed this land before and after the Spanish colonial mission. The piece covers the land and its history, not the interior or any ceremony.
Kakawa and the Case for Historic Drinking Chocolate
Kakawa Chocolate House in Santa Fe and its project of recreating documented Mesoamerican and colonial drinking-chocolate formulations — what the historical sources are, what the recipes differ from modern hot chocolate, and why the project is a food-history argument. A piece about a named place and its stated premise.
The people behind the pod — the NMSU breeders, the Pueblo farmers, the Chimayó seed-savers.
Fabián García Standardised the Pod — and Nobody Talks About Him Enough
García's biography as documented at NMSU — his arrival at the New Mexico College of Agriculture, the decades of crossing work, and the 1913 release of New Mexico No. 9 as the first commercially standardised chile cultivar in the state. An argument for why his name should be as recognised as the chile itself.
A Century of Breeding at NMSU, Pod by Pod
The New Mexico State University chile breeding programme from García's No. 9 through Nakayama's Big Jim to present-day heat and disease-resistance work — a chronological account of what each generation of breeders was trying to fix. A walk-through of institutional plant science.
Three Sisters, One Ditch: Pueblo Agriculture Before and After Contact
The three-sisters polyculture (corn, beans, squash) as practised by Pueblo peoples of the Río Grande valley, and how the Spanish colonial acequia system was grafted onto — and in some places disrupted — existing irrigation infrastructure. A piece of documented agricultural history.
The Camino Real and the Santa Fe Trail — the two roads that wrote the menu.
The Camino Real Brought Livestock, Wheat and a New Set of Spices North
The Camino Real de Tierra Adentro as a food-supply corridor — what the colonial supply trains carried northward from Mexico City, which ingredients they introduced to Pueblo cooking, and what changed after the 1680 Pueblo Revolt severed the road for twelve years. A piece about a road as a menu.
The Santa Fe Trail Arrived in 1821 and Brought Wheat Flour With It
The trail's 1821 opening and its immediate effect on Santa Fe's food supply — specifically the arrival of American wheat flour in commercial quantities and what that did to the tortilla, the sopaipilla and the biscochito. A before-and-after argument anchored to a named year.
Six Dates That Put the Food Where It Is
1610 (founding of Santa Fe), 1680 (Pueblo Revolt), 1821 (Trail opening), 1912 (statehood), 1943 (Los Alamos), 1996 (State Question) — each date as a specific event with a documented food-culture consequence. A chronological argument, not a timeline widget.