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Post by chrysanthemum on Oct 15, 2022 13:58:30 GMT -6
I learned of a new type of pepper this summer and got some seeds to try for fall. I just harvested my first one (of only two fruits) this morning. The pepper is called “Beaver Dam Pepper,” named after a community in Wisconsin where Hungarian immigrants settled early in the last century. They brought the seeds from Hungary and raised it here in America. Here’s a link with more of the details. www.atlasobscura.com/foods/beaver-dam-pepperMy husband is of Hungarian extraction. His father escaped Hungary as a teenager just before the Soviet invasion, and he was able to come to America years later and make a new life here. He was profoundly thankful to the end of his days to have been able to become an American, but he still had fond memories of his childhood in Hungary. He cooked a mean chicken paprikash, and my plan in growing this pepper was to make paprika to give to him for Christmas. Sadly he passed away recently, so that plan has changed, but I still feel thankful to have gotten to harvest one of the fruits so far. The other is ripening. Here are some pictures. This first picture is the pepper I harvested today. The plant actually got dug up several weeks back by one of my garden invaders when the pepper was young. I will admit that particular event reduced me to tears that day, but I was able to replant it and keep it alive. Today after I harvested the pepper, I cut the plant back to reduce its foliage and to keep it a smaller size so that I can better protect it from cold. I plan to do something similar to the second plant once the pepper on it ripens more. Here’s a close-up of that second pepper that’s still ripening. Here’s the little one I harvested. I got the seeds out before letting it dry for paprika. These peppers are supposed to have a mild heat to them, maybe up to 1,000 Scovilles. I am either incapable of growing a truly mildly hot pepper in our Texas heat and drought, or else our family has no ability to distinguish between mild heat and high heat. A few of us tasted just a bit of the pepper, and boy, it was hot (to us)! I’m still planning to grind it for paprika, but it may be a spicier paprika than I intended.
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Post by woodeye on Oct 15, 2022 15:36:20 GMT -6
A nice story about the history of the pepper, chrysanthemum. Congratulations for growing some peppers that came with a history, only to have more history added to it, due to garden invasions. Good job!
Please let us know how the paprika turns out, I'm all for making some for deviled eggs. I've dehydrated Jalapeños & made powder, it's awesome...
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Post by hmoosek on Oct 15, 2022 17:20:35 GMT -6
Thanks for posting about that pepper chrysanthemum. I did not even know it existed. I’m not knowledgeable about peppers.
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Post by macmex on Oct 15, 2022 18:26:21 GMT -6
My father grew a couple types of paprika when I was a boy. They were all very mild, but one of the professors where I work traveled to that part of the world (Hiungary, Bulgaria & Romania) and brought back a good amount of paprika pastes from those countries. There were fabulous! They had a pungency to them but very little heat.
I wonder if your pepper seed supplier got crossed seed?
The prof gave me several tubes of paprika which I happily used until they were used up. It really tickled me to think that there's a part of the world that I am so unfamiliar with, that uses peppers as part of their traditional cuisine, and that, in a way so very different from what I became accustomed to in Mexico!
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Post by chrysanthemum on Oct 15, 2022 19:36:20 GMT -6
It is possible that there was a cross, but the other features of the pepper seemed true. I think the heat is due to our growing conditions or our tastebuds, or a combination of both. I’ll be interested to see how it works as a paprika. It will definitely be too hot for us to use in large quantities in a dish like paprikash, but I could see my kids sprinkling it on eggs. Hungarians definitely have a range of different paprikas. Here’s a link to an article that discusses different types of paprika and mentions eight different Hungarian grades. I can’t even begin to imagine how to pronounce those words. www.thekitchn.com/whats-the-difference-hot-sweet-68134One of our favorite spices to use this year has been a homemade fish pepper powder. Fish peppers are supposed to have a serrrano-like heat. I’ve seen 30,000 Scovilles listed. We use very little at a time, but we’ve almost emptied our spice jar this year. I do have more dried peppers from last year that I can grind as a refill. This year was so hot that my fish peppers are only now ripening just a few small peppers. It will be interesting to see how the Beaver Dam Pepper Powder will compare to the Fish Pepper Powder, though this one pepper will not give us very much powder.
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Post by rdback on Oct 16, 2022 11:04:16 GMT -6
Congrats on your success Chrys. I grew Beaver Dam in 2009. My notes say "Hot Hungarian heirloom. Plants bear tapered, light-green fruit ripening to red." Nothing more than that, and I haven't grown it since. I did find an old photo from 9-02-09. It looks like a nice pepper, but perhaps not too prolific?
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Post by chrysanthemum on Oct 16, 2022 14:09:16 GMT -6
That plant looks very much like what I’ve got out in the garden. Your notes sound like something from a seed advertisement. Do you tend to copy blurbs, or is that something you likely wrote yourself. I’m most just intrigued by your use of the word “hot” because I know that you have some very high standards when it comes to hot. (Maybe back in 2009 would had more capsaicin receptors, though.)
It does seem to be a very nice pepper. It’s funny, I’ve had just the one fruit on each of my two plants, but there are buds on the plants that just never seem to open. I’m wondering if I’ll see more flowers now that I harvested from one plant and pruned it back some.
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Post by rdback on Oct 17, 2022 8:32:44 GMT -6
Sure, I'm not above using someone else's verbiage, including the seed source, in my personal notes as long as it reflects my thoughts/opinions. In this case, I don't recall. The fact that I only grew Beaver Dam once tells me it was both unremarkable and forgettable.
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Post by chrysanthemum on Oct 17, 2022 21:31:17 GMT -6
I communicated with the gentleman who first told me about Beaver Dam Peppers. He gave me some interesting information about the peppers. He said that they tend to be sweet and mild toward the tip, but they increase in heat towards the top and can get quite hot at the stem end. I had sliced a circle out of the stem end to get access to the seeds. Then I used my knife to cut the extra flesh away from that end, and that’s what we all sampled. I don’t know how the tip tasted, but maybe the paprika made from the whole pepper will be milder than our little taste test led me to expect. That would be a good thing in my opinion.
I think when I harvest the next pepper, I’ll cut off the very tip first and let us all sample that. I hadn’t really thought about the location of our samples making a difference. I’m no pepper expert.
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Post by chrysanthemum on Oct 22, 2022 13:32:47 GMT -6
I harvested my second Beaver Dam Pepper today, and I cut back the plant significantly to make it use less water and be easier to protect should we have a cold snap. I did taste test the very tip, and it was much sweeter with a mild heat, much more what I had been expecting for the other, so there’s hope for a nice fruity and mildly spicy paprika yet.
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Post by chrysanthemum on Oct 23, 2022 21:26:30 GMT -6
Here’s what two Beaver Dam Peppers look like all dried and ground up into powder. The powder is very fragrant with a fruitiness to it and definitely spicy, though not super spicy. It’s probably too much heat for me to use in a dish like paprikash, but I have no doubt that we’ll find places to use this powder. Even though I had hoped for a larger harvest than two peppers, I’m pleased that I was able to make a little paprika, and I’ve got a bunch of healthy looking seeds drying out now.
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Post by woodeye on Oct 23, 2022 21:34:03 GMT -6
That looks so elegant, congratulations are in order for chrysanthemum. I'd be mighty proud to accomplish something like that. Oh! I'm having visions of deviled eggs dancing in my head. That is the first food I would have to sprinkle some of that on....
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Post by woodeye on Oct 25, 2022 11:41:42 GMT -6
Oh look what you have done now, chrysanthemum , you have set off a major craving for homemade paprika sprinkled on deviled eggs, and the craving is so strong that I simply could not resist. I've decided to grow some Beaver Dam peppers, and NuMex Vince Hernandez (formerly known as NuMex R. Naky) for paprika next year. I've grown several other varieties from this seed company, mild green chiles are most definitely my favorite pepper.
www.sandiaseed.com/products/paprika
www.sandiaseed.com/products/beaver-dam
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Post by chrysanthemum on Oct 25, 2022 20:02:28 GMT -6
Oh, my! That is one of the dangers on this website. I find myself getting interested in the varieties other people are growing. That paprika pepper (Vince Hernandez) that you just wrote about …. No, no, no. Don’t get me thinking about it. We actually used our homemade Beaver Dam Pepper Powder today. My son made macaroni and cheese with a homemade cheese sauce, and he added a quarter teaspoon of the pepper powder to it. I think it probably need more than a quarter teaspoon because it was also competing with fresh garlic, ground mustard, salt, and black pepper, too. The whole dish was very good, though. We also love deviled eggs around here (except for my husband, who has something of an aversion to hard cooked eggs). I tend to make them for special occasions like birthdays. My mom used to sprinkle paprika on them when she made them, but it isn’t something I’ve done when I make them. I might have to give it a try next time I do make them.
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Post by woodeye on Oct 25, 2022 22:46:35 GMT -6
Oh, my! That is one of the dangers on this website. I find myself getting interested in the varieties other people are growing. That paprika pepper (Vince Hernandez) that you just wrote about …. No, no, no. Don’t get me thinking about it. We actually used our homemade Beaver Dam Pepper Powder today. My son made macaroni and cheese with a homemade cheese sauce, and he added a quarter teaspoon of the pepper powder to it. I think it probably need more than a quarter teaspoon because it was also competing with fresh garlic, ground mustard, salt, and black pepper, too. The whole dish was very good, though. We also love deviled eggs around here (except for my husband, who has something of an aversion to hard cooked eggs). I tend to make them for special occasions like birthdays. My mom used to sprinkle paprika on them when she made them, but it isn’t something I’ve done when I make them. I might have to give it a try next time I do make them. Oh Yeah!! That plate of food looks great, chrysanthemum. I agree, it's so tempting when someone posts about other varieties that are must-haves. By the way, it's already too late if you are saying that you don't want to think about that paprika pepper...
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