I hope New Mexico doesn't lose its chiles (h/t Matt Yglesias). I've never lived anywhere so dedicated to a particular plant. The obsession is strong enough to influence McDonald's corporate culture, which offers (as far as I know only in NM) green chile sauce with its hamburgers. Almost everyone I knew would go on treks in the summer to the chile farms and buy big boxes full of peppers to freeze. And the standard by which every restaurant was judged was the quality of the red and green sauce. I was also interested to finally discover relationship between the chile and the Anaheim pepper. I used to have fierce
arguments with NM natives about whether it is possible to buy chiles in the Northwest. I maintained (incorrectly according to the article) that the Anaheim is the same thing, which was a somewhat heretical notion among New Mexico's true believers.
