Low stakes, high rewards
This week we are dealing with a dish that feels like playing Russian roulette. We will not make it as intense as Mike (Robert De Niro) and Nick (Christopher Walken) in the movie the Deerhunter. Instead of playing a lethal game in a Vietnamese prisoner camp or a gambling place in Saigon, we all take place at a long table in Galicia where plates are filled with Pimientos de Padròn while drinking a Albariño.
"Los pimientos de Padrón, unos pican y otros no" or "Peppers from Padron, some are hot and some are not".
A Smith & Wesson .357 Magnum holds six chambers. When playing Russian roulette you fill one chamber with a bullet and spin the cilinder, you have a 16.6 percent chance of shooting yourself through the head. The same goes for eating the Pimientos de Padron. There is a 15 percent chance you pick a spicy one, luckily this pepper is not lethal.
Take a seat
Pimientos de Padron are light green/yellow-green peppers, sometimes red, with a size of five till ten centimeters. It is a typical spanish tapas dish that you can find in every tapas bar around Spain. There is only one way to prepare these peppers and it is very simple:
Put olive oil in a frying pan (doesn't matter what kind of oil)
Throw in the pimientos the padron
Bake until the skin starts to blister
Put them on a plate and generously throw rough salt over them
Pan comido, a piece of cake. It is a typical Spanish dish. No fancy sauces or special ways of cooking them. Just throw them in a pan with a bit of olive oil, let them burn (a bit) and that's it. Simplicity is key in the Spanish kitchen, something I truly admire.
Not just a pepper
The Spaniards love the Pimientos de Padròn so much they throw a big party for the vegetable every year that attracts thousands of visitors. The festival is called Fiesta del Pimiento de Herbòn. During this festival there are competitions between local farmers. Which farmer has the best harvest this year and which peasant woman is able to prepare them the best? There is no chance you will eat something else this day than the Pimientos the Padròn. Sounds like a dream right? Lets go and dive in the history of the celebrated pepper.
So the festival is named Fiesta del Pimiento de Herbòn and not Padròn, padron me? Hebròn is a district in Padròn that is located in Galicia, Spain. According to archeologists, Padròn dates back to the prehistory. The village grew into a city under the name Iria Flavia, this name was appointed by the Romans.
The Greater
Padròn was and still is a very religious place. The village of Padròn is often mentioned in Biblical stories but there is a legend about Padròn that sticks out. There are multiple stories about what happened to the body of Saint James the Great or Sint Jacobus after his excecution, one of these stories leads to the Galician village.
The two apprentices of Saint James, Athanasius and Theodorus, came to the place of the excecution in the evening to pick up his body so it could be burried in a appropriate way. The two apprentices didn't know what to do with the body, God answered to them. God gave them a boat made out of stone on which they sailed for 7 days straight. They sailed over the Medditerean Sea, through the Pillars of Hercules (Street of Gibraltar) and followed the coastal line convoyed by an angel. Eventually they were led into Ria de Arosa, the angel dissapeared and suddenly the boat was stuck on a big stone. The apprentices and the liveless body of Saint James arrived in Padròn. Athanasius and Theodorus placed the body of Saint James on a big white rock that immediately transfered into a white sarcophagus. The apprentices then knew they had to bury the sarcophagus nearby.
The rock on which the boat was stuck can still be found in the Santiago de Padrón. After meeting a greedy queen, a wretched king, a firebreathing dragon and wild bull, Athanasius and Theodorus eventually succeeded in burying Saint James (Sorry for skipping the whole exciting part of the legend but it has nothing to do with Padròn). He now rests in the cathedral of Santiago de Compostella, a city that is 25 kilometre distant of Padròn.
So?
The journey Athanasius and Theodorus took with the body of Sint Jacobus is now known as the Camino de Santiago pelgrimage route. The route goes through the Pyrenees, Pamplona and Léon, the whole route is indicated with Coquille Saint-Jacques shells. Early records show that religious people already walked this pilgrimage route far back in the 9th century.
Back to Padròn. In 1396 a monestary in the district named Herbòn erupted. This monestary is seen as the birthplace of Pimientos de Padròn. The monestary was inhabited by Franciscans, an order who perseud reliving the life of Christ by depending on begging and doing good deeds. These monks were the first to plant the seeds of the pepper between the walls of the monastary, this was not until around 1800. The result of this experiment were green peppers about 5-10 centimers with a sweet but sometimes spicy taste, the Pimientos de Padròn.
Spreading
These Franciscans must have had a good culinary taste because the monks kept producing the peppers for over the years. The many pilgrims that visited Padròn were now able to enjoy these sweet and occasianaly hot peppers in the local tapas bars. The pilgrims became as enthousiastic as the Franciscans about the peppers and spread the word through the whole of Spain that there was this monastary in Padròn that was making tasty peppers. And is was fun to eat because you didn't know what you could get! It probably went a bit like this:
Pilgrim: Have you heard about these peppers from Padron? I've had them and they are so tasty and fun!
Spaniard: Pimientos de Padròn? Que no?
Pilgrim: "Los pimientos de Padrón, unos pican y otros no". You have to try!
Thank you executioner?
You can see it like this: If Sint Jacobus wasn't beheaded, Althanasius and Theodorus would have never arrived in Padron, the monestary in Herbòn would have never excisted because Padron wouldn't be that special for their religion and the peppers would have never been planted. So next time you're biting into one of these lovely but yet simple peppers thank the excecutioner for beheading Sint Jacobus, otherwise we probably would've never eaten the pepper...