Mexico hot under the collar at U.S. pepper scare

By Mica Rosenberg

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexicans are jumping to the defense of the jalapeno pepper, maligned by U.S. health inspectors in a salmonella scare but loved by millions in its ancient home and growing in popularity north of the border.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said on Monday it found a jalapeno pepper contaminated with the strain of salmonella that has sickened more than 1,200 people and warned everyone across the United States to stop eating them.

But the warning did little to dampen the appetite for jalapenos in Mexico, where the spicy green pepper is heaped on tacos and sandwiches at almost every street corner.

Jalapenos, named after the eastern Mexican city of Jalapa, were grown before the Spanish conquest in the 1500s and chiles are among the oldest domesticated crops in the Americas.

"Mexico has one of the best cuisines in the world. In the United States they don't understand, they have hamburgers and hot dogs. That's not a tradition, that's just junk," said Pedro Garcia while slathering salsa on to fried tacos at a busy street stall in Mexico City.

Mexico's ancient Aztec royalty favored drinks of chile and chocolate and Mayans tried to cure everything from dysentery, to asthma to vertigo with spicy powders.

"In the United States, they have weak stomachs, everything makes them sick," said Garcia, 46, a school administrator.

The outbreak of the salmonella strain, known as Salmonella Saintpaul, has now made 1,251 people ill and put 229 into hospitals in the United States.  Continued...