Pepper Smoking Bonanza
Day one of the workshop series on a beautiful Friday September evening. All photos by Corey Blant, Maggie Paradis, and Maya Marie S.
Still exploding with fullness, joy, and gratitude from our weekender, two-part Pepper Smoking 101 session held at East New York Farms’ Youth Farm in partnership with the New York Restoration Project.
We began the offering on Friday evening by focusing on chili pepper culture and harvesting methods. Maya went over chili peppers’ botany, origins and migrations before Alexx shared the varieties growing on the farm including scotch bonnet, chocolate scotch bonnet, habanero, chocolate habanero, ghost, scorpion, Filfil Gazawi (an heirloom Palestinian pepper in partnership with the Palestinian Heirloom Seed library), bird’s eye pepper, and so so many more. Then Alexx led folks on a tour of the pepper plants before demonstrating safe harvest technique before letting participants begin harvesting peppers we’d be smoking the next day.
The next day we returned to the farm to get smoking! Alexx briefly reviewed the peppers from yesterday since we only had a couple new faces join our group, and then Maya got into smoking set up and technique. She demonstrated how to use a smoker from starting the charcoal with a chimney, loading up the woodchips, and different components of the smoker and how the concept can be transferred to a grill set-up. She also demonstrated examples of how many peppers to put in the smoker and discussed factors that impact smoking duration, temperature, and flavor. We also got into different methods of dehydrating and grinding the peppers.
Afterwards folks got to select some smoked and dried peppers to grind up (so many types of grinders), blend, add to salt, and taste! We shared some homemade chili seasoned with smoked cayenne and scotch bonnet peppers from last year’s session. It was accompanied by some homemade cornbread and delicious drinks. We wrapped with another group photo and lots of peppers for folks to take home.
Thanks to New York Restoration Project for making this weekend such a success, to Alexx for co-facilitating and sharing all their beautifully grown pepper, to the ENY Youth Farm for hosting us, and to everyone who attended. Scroll through all the photos below!!
All photos by Corey Blant, Maggie Paradis, and Maya Marie S. Please don’t use without written permission.
After discussing chili pepper botany, migrations, and stories with Maya; Alexx led the group in a beautiful walkthrough of peppers being grown on the farm.
Alexx holding scotch bonnet peppers.
A farm tour focused on the dozen or so pepper varieties Farm Manager Alexx is growing at the East New York Youth Farm.
Alexx going over how to harvest the peppers.
Quick group photo!
Habenero, macedonia, cali, and cherry peppers.
Folks harvesting peppers for tomorrow’s smoking session (above and below).
Sorting our pepper bounty with participants.
Getting ready for Day 2 of peppers!
Examples of smoked, fresh, and ground up peppers: Scotch bonnet, scorpion, ghost, cayenne, and chocolate habenero.
Maya demonstrating how to use a smoker from starting the charcoal with a chimney, loading up the woodchips, and different components of the smoker and how the concept can be transferred to a grill set-up. She also demonstrated examples of how many peppers to put in the smoker and discussed factors that impact smoking duration, temperature, and flavor.
Break to load up the next smoker and check on the peppers that were started before folks arrived.
Beginning to get into dispersing smoked pepper flakes for participants to make a seasoning salt or chili blend.
Group photo!!!
