The Jalape?o Cannon
Sometimes you just have to wonder how you got there... this is mostly true.
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Imagine, if you will, an inventor’s workshop. It lies in the heart of the Chihuahua Desert in Northern Mexico, at the edge of the town of Delicias, surrounded by jalape?o fields. Delicias’ one claim to fame is the annual Jalape?o Festival, led by the fearless Jose Maria driving his 10-meter long Jalape?oMobile, which he converted from a World War II half-track into the pride of Delicias and the star of its festival.
At the edge of Delicias is Don Eusebio’s house and his workshops. The workshops have their own courtyards, and 3-meter tall concrete walls topped with broken glass and barbed wire to protect his inventions. We were there to see one of his inventions. I and three clients had heard that Don Eusebio had a sure-fire way to mass-produce charred flash-frozen jalape?os and we were there to see it in action.
We arrived late one afternoon and in the light and shade of the setting sun, were invited into a courtyard. In the courtyard was a massive device, easily 5 meters tall. It looked like a cannon, but it had a conveyor belt going up to the high end, and a straw basket at the low end.
We greeted Don Eusebio and moved to one side as he got his device ready. It began to rotate along its long axis and the conveyor belt started up. Someone had already loaded jalape?os onto the belt and soon they were falling into the open mouth of the cannon and spiraling their way down inside the tube.
When Don Eusebio wheeled up a gas cylinder we collectively took a step back and realized that there was only one way out of the courtyard, and that was in front of the device. When Don Eusebio opened up the gas cylinder a whoosh of gas streamed up the cannon’s tube. We, meanwhile, started crab-stepping sideways away and towards the entryway to the courtyard. But before we could get there Don Eusebio pulled out a match and lit it and there was a huge WHOOOOSHHH! and a blast of bright flame out the ass end of the cannon blowing the basket and its uncharred jalape?os into flaming debris that pelted us all and caught Don Eusebio’s pants on fire.
And as we rapidly left that place, I saw a flight of perfectly charred, smoking jalape?os flying off into the sunset over the town.
Don Eusebio asked us to come back, as we had only seen the charring end of the process, the quick-freezing was still to be demonstrated, and eventually, we did come back to see that wonder, but that is a story for another day.
Still, I’ve always wondered what happened to the charred jalape?os that soared away into the evening sky, and where they landed in the town of Delicias, home of the yearly Jalape?o Festival, surrounded by unending fields of jalape?os, in the Chihuahua Desert of northern Mexico.
And that, my friends, is the story of the Jalape?o Cannon.