Finding The Wild​ Chiltepíns

A journey through the back roads of Sonora gave Dave Dewitt a better understanding of the coveted pepper plant.

- Dave DeWitt

MY AMIGO ANTONIO SWEARS THAT THE MOTTO OF THE SONORAN BUS LINES IS “BETTER DEAD THAN LATE,” AND I BELIEVE HIM. The smoke-belching buses were flying by us on curves marked by shrines commemorating the unfortunate drivers whose journeys through life had abruptly ended on this mountain road. We waved the buses on and cruised along at a safer speed to enjoy the spectacular vistas on the way to the valley of the chiltepíneros.

It was November 1990, the time of the Sonoran chiltepín harvest, yet the temperature was in the upper 80s. My wife Mary Jane and I had accepted an invitation from Antonio Heras to visit the home of his mother, Josefina Durán, aka the “chile queen,” who lives in the town of Cumpas. From there, we journeyed through the spectacular scenery of the foothills of the Sierra Madre range—chiltepín country. Our destination was the Rio Sonora valley and the villages of La Aurora and Mazocahui.

As we drove along, Antonio and I reminisced about our fascination with the wild pepper.

A Fiery Flashback

During the early days of Chile Pepper magazine, both of us had attended a symposium on wild chiles that was held in 1988 at the Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix. The leader of the conference was the ecologist Dr. Gary Nabhan, author of Gathering the Desert, the then director of Native Seeds/SEARCH and an expert on chiltepíns. Other chile experts attending included: Dr. W. Hardy Eshbaugh, a botanist from Miami University of Ohio; Dr. Jean Andrews, author of Peppers: The Domesticated Capsicums; and Cindy Baker of the Chicago Botanical Garden.