You remember how I love fresh peppers and got all inspired by the interview with Randy of Bailey Farms that I started using all of the specialty peppers for all of the things? Well, I recently had a chance to sit down and chat with Adriana Martin, chef and influencer at Adriana’s Best Recipes, to talk about the shift from blogger to entrepreneur and to discuss her new cookbook, Best of Mexican Cooking (affiliate link). And having been in pepper, tomato & melon fields together, I had to ask about the fresh ingredients she focuses on. 

One of the things that stands out in her book is her explanation of the various ingredients essential to Mexican cuisine, everything from simple onions and potatoes to more exciting like epazote (an aromatic plant) and nopales (grilled cactus).

What really stood out, though, was her description of the pepper varieties most commonly used in Mexican cooking.

Choosing peppers can feel a little overwhelming if you aren’t sure what you are looking for to fit the flavor profile of you dish, but Adriana does a great job breaking down the five most popular chile peppers in Mexican home cooking with how hot they are and where they are best put to use as you cook.

You know, it used to be hard to find anything beyond green or red bell peppers and jalapenos in the grocery store. Nowadays, though, most of us have fairly easy access to a wide variety of peppers, everything from dried New Mexico chiles and cans of chipotles to shishito peppers, habaneros, poblanos and more. 

Reminded of the Pepper Farm Tours!

Seeing all these peppers being put to such delicious use in this cookbook got me thinking about my visit to Bailey Farms back before covid was an issue.The Baileys grow a range of peppers from the hot (like serranos, Hungarian, and habaneros) to the sweet (like cubanelles and shishitos) to their special mini-bell peppers and the extra-sweet peppers. When I visited the Bailey’s pepper farms, nowhere is the vast diversity of their peppers more evident than inside their North Carolina warehouse and packing plant.

Yes, a pepper warehouse. 

I wish that I could share with you the incredible fragrance of this place. It is a full-on sensory experience, and when Paul, a member of the Bailey Farms team, took me on a tour, the rainbow of peppers there, in that one space, was mind-blowing. We saw those beautiful BellaFinas, hot cherry bomb peppers, shishitos, and so much more. They were all eye-catching, and you can see a video of the pepper warehouse tour here on the blog.Pretty early on in the tour, Paul steered me away from the deep green of the poblanos, to the bright flash of the more glamorous peppers. But those peppers are an absolute workhorse in Mexican home cooking, and nothing showcases their rich, comforting flavor better than chiles rellenos. Adriana has made these plenty of times, and shares her family recipe in Best of Mexican Cooking. So if it’s been a while since you’ve had good chile rellenos, go ahead and flip to page 102 in the cookbook. And if you don’t have a copy yet, you can get on here.

The post Focus on Fresh Peppers & Flavors for the Best Mexican Home Cooking appeared first on Grounded by the Farm.

Peppers are a food that spark a lot of passion and nowhere is that more clear than with Bailey Farms. Randy Bailey started the farm in Oxford, NC as a young adult knowing how much he enjoyed the spicy foods a friend’s mom cooked. That was in the 1980s and American food culture has certainly embraced the various Latin foods and the specialty peppers category has grown with grocery stores and farms like the Baileys’. They grow a beautiful range of peppers as you can see in the video tour of their facility.

I first met Randy, Debbie and their young son Ryan on the family’s Bonita Springs, Florida farm that enables them to get multiple growing seasons in a year. My memory is strong because I smelled the poblanos and almost immediately craved a chili relleno! In fact, the memory of that alone made me go to a nearby taqueria the day I was editing this episode of the podcast!

To me it was a physical sensation and while I feel certain it was a natural high, Randy said it was probably the combination of memory and the fragrance of poblanos. While that strikes a note for me and Randy agrees there is nothing bad about a poblano — meat, cheese and a pepper, what’s not to like? He keeps serrano peppers in his pocket frequently just to add a bit of flavor to a burger or whatever.

How Bailey Farms Started Growing Peppers

When they first started, they would grow the 3-4 months the North Carolina farm let them grow. And they wanted to grow so they started contracting with other farmers. Eventually they also bought farms in Florida. The Baileys grow, pack and distribute peppers to get them to retailers and more.

Randy’s dad loved farming although he worked professionally as a chemist. But his passion for agriculture and Randy’s love of the spicy foods a friend’s mom made, led them to specializing in peppers. His best friend growing up had parent’s who immigrated from Mexico and it wasn’t as common in the eastern US.

As the US demographics shifted in the 90s, Bailey Farms grew with it, selling more peppers and a wider range of specialty peppers. More recently, a diverse flavor palate and some of the impacts of social media have fueled more growth.

Fresh Market & Reducing Food Waste

While the Baileys are focused on fresh market peppers — the kind we all buy in the produce section of our local grocery — they also look for innovative ways to reduce food waste.

They have secondary markets that take some of the peppers with stress marks on the fruit and with some of the damaged peppers, they have been making hot sauce. He laughs and points out that is a crowded segment but it is a ways to cook up some of the peppers that would otherwise not be used. They also do some dried peppers with a cooperator.

And at times, when they have more inventory than the market needs, product gets donated to the local food banks, providing residents in need with fresh produce. I actually spent time in a Feeding America site in Florida to cull damaged product a few years ago.

A Range of Specialty Peppers

Randy laughs and says he and Debbie go in phases with how they use peppers at home. Right now they are eating low carb so they stuff a lot of peppers. They do a cheese steak stuffed, cheeseburger stuffed, Mexican stuffed… all kinds of things. They have more than 4,000 recipes on how to use specialty peppers on their website BaileyFarmsInc.com so they always have ideas!

Specialty peppers include a range of flavors and heat and Randy points out the Baileys do a number of sweet peppers as well as the hotter ones.

The Scoville scale was introduced about a hundred years ago to help people understand the spicy heat peppers have. Since the 1980s, lab testing has brought a depth of scientific knowledge to the scale. Jalapeños are 2,000-8,000 units on the scale. Habaneros are 100,000 to 300,000 but there are some hybrids that have lower heat and yet the flavor. The ghost peppers and Carolina Reapers really leave those in the dust.

Peppers is a growing category. Green peppers are high in vitamin c. And the red and yellows are high in vitamin a which is good for eyesight.

And the Baileys are always looking for the next thing. He says they currently have close to 200 varieties/hybrids they are looking at in the field. There is a lot of breeding in peppers — more than ever before. They look for product taste, productivity, flavor and more. He is excited to have a new sweet pepper with habanero background in it. It’s only a single color and the color diversity is so nice. Has a great crunch!

Universities and private companies are really moving things along to develop new peppers faster. For home gardeners, the All-America Selections typically are widely adapted for a variety of growing regions. (One of my favorites to grow at home is the Sweet Sunset.)

Lots of Logistics when Growing Peppers in Multiple States

Having farms in multiple states presents a few challenges Randy says — the biggest come as you transition working from one state to another. He can find his farm work wrapping up at one place, going full steam at another and just beginning in a third location.

They begin harvesting specialty peppers in October on some farms and keep transitioning through late spring. They plant 22 weeks straight at the farm in South Florida to keep harvest rolling in. The supply chain is hard, but mother nature also throws a wrench or two into it now and then. They don’t ever want to find a customer order they can’t meet.

They ship to around 10,000 grocery stores throughout the southeast, northeast and midwest.

Using Integrated Methods to Control Pests

Growing peppers by acres rather than plants presents farmers with some different challenges than home gardeners, Randy says. They do what they can to keep the beneficial insects by planting other things like sunflowers that can attract the damaging pests away from the peppers or can help provide hosts for the good bugs.

There are a lot of diseases, insects and more that will eat plants… Randy points out that even deer can present issues in the field. They try to find the least invasive ways to control all pests and have even gone to trying air cannons and erecting fences!

With all of that, weather and labor are two of the biggest challenges vegetable farmers like Randy face. Weather has always been weather but labor is the worst it has ever been he says.

Some local help works with the Baileys but the seasonality means recruiting workers and sponsoring H2A visas for them. The hand harvesting comes with red tape and costs. The cost of doing that and competing on a global market with farmers in places that don’t pay US wage rates.

If Florida gets cold or a hurricane takes out some of the market, the Baileys import product to cover orders.

Links to Learn More about Specialty Peppers

Video of Bailey Farms peppers on farm, packing and shipping

Scoville scale:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scoville_scale

Bailey Farms website:  baileyfarmsinc.com

Bailey Farms Instagram

Bailey Farms on Facebook

The post How Americans Love of Spicy Food Gave Specialty Peppers Room to Grow appeared first on Grounded by the Farm.

Peppers are one of those foods that people are really passionate about. And Randy Bailey is definitely a pepper person. He’s passionate enough that he started a pepper farm and this video provides us a short glance at Bailey Farms Inc. It is a family farm that has grown since it started in the 80s and now warehouses, packs and ships a range of peppers. I stopped by the Oxford, NC headquarters facilities where one of the members of the team — Paul Strasser — shows us around and opens up the world of peppers for us.

I met the Bailey family years ago and have had the chance to visit their pepper farms a few times. As he says on their website, he appreciates that more people want to know more about the foods they put on their plates. So he has hosted bloggers and the like (Leanette did a great post about her visit to the Florida farm and still tells me how this experience helped her family start eating more vegetables.

Randy and I recorded the episode for this week’s podcast, and net thing we knew there was something that needed his attention that called him away. Luckily, Paul was a perfect stand-in for the tour and helped em understand some of the types of peppers that the Bailey team works with.

Some of the peppers grown on the farm or others the Bailey contract with for shipping & distribution include:

• Bell peppers, both full size and miniature — these have a wide spread geography and can be used for a range of things from stuffed peppers to snacking.
• Jalapeños — A great basic pepper… use these often.
• Cherry bombs — Another medium pepper — Paul has a friend that makes a great Jamaican salsa with these!
• Serrano — One of Randy’s favorites… says he keeps a few in his pocket to spice up food on the regular.
• Shishito — I haven’t used these much but Paul points out that some of the trendy restaurants are beginning to flash fry these and serve them with some balsamic vinegar and I am dying to try that!
• Habaneros — These are too hot for me but my nephew loves them and all the pepper sauces!
• Ghost peppers — Another one that is too hot for me but Paul loves them. He says he makes salsa with them and his wife makes poppers with them like other people do jalapeños!

I love that Debbie Bailey has put together a website that showcases some of the family’s pepper farm as well as an amazing depth of recipes for all things peppers! You will definitely want to check out BaileyFarmsInc.com and their Bailey Farms Instagram or Bailey Farms on Facebook.

And if you are in the eastern half of the United States, you may well see their logo in the store if you take a look. I know I catch them now and then here in St. Louis as well as when I visit family!

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