Hungry Travelers

Even in Massachusetts the days are starting to get longer and we are suffering garden fever. In just a few weeks, we will be starting our spring sets indoors. It’s not that we expect Cayman peppers to grow entirely true to form in New England, but we have had some surprisingly good luck with various Central American and Caribbean peppers before. It’s worth a try.

We have some Caymanian seeds for the country’s traditional seasoning pepper (don’t ask), but we will hedge our bets with some commercial seed stock.

A little research identified the Cayman seasoning pepper (as shown in the bowl) as a local variant known elsewhere in the Caribbean basin as ají dulce. Puerto Ricans abbreviate the name to ajice and use them extensively in sofrito and recaíto (sofrito without the tomato). The low-heat pepper is a variety of Capsicum chinense, as are the hotter habañeros, Scotch bonnets, and Datil peppers. Looking around at sources, we settled on Tomato Growers Supply Company
in Florida, which grows seed originally from Cuba. We’ll see….

As we made our version of the Cayman pepper jelly, we were a little concerned about the color. Ours seemed to have a lovely amber hue, while the original was darker and more opaque. Once our jars had rested and the jelly had set, we came to the moment of truth. How did it compare to the Cayman product we so admired?

We spread water crackers with each. As we had observed, our jelly (on the left) was paler and more translucent. It also appeared to have fewer bits of pepper pulp in suspension. We sniffed. Ours had a slightly acrid nose. The original smelled sweeter and darker—almost like French onion soup. That should have been the tip-off.

Then we tasted. Ours was still sharper, maybe even a little hotter than the original. It also had a distinct flavor of raw peppers—both sweet peppers and chiles. The original was smoother, with a long finish of roasted garlic and caramelized onions next to the fruity flavors of the family of peppers that includes habañero, Scotch bonnet, and the mild Cayman seasoning pepper.

Final judgment: Our jelly will be fine as a marinade ingredient, but we won’t be eating it on crackers just yet.

We’re guessing that the secret Cayman recipe calls for cooking the peppers with onion and garlic before proceeding with the next step. Oh well—the people at Pepper Patch spent four years working out the kinks in their recipe. We seem to have mastered the right amounts of thyme, allspice, cloves and cinnamon. Our biggest challenge will be to get the pepper mix right. The sweet bell peppers, no matter how ripe, are the wrong flavor. We will need a whole lot more Cayman seasoning peppers before we try this again. Check in next fall, after we’ve harvested the garden.