The defining choice on every New Mexican menu: red or green chile, or both, Christmas. Red is dried, smoky and often deeper; green is bright, vegetal and hotter when young.
Spanish colonists brought the chile pepper north from Mexico in 1598, and the long-pod cultivars stabilised in the Rio Grande Valley around Hatch (south) and Chimayo (north). By the early 20th century, the red-or-green question had become the state's edible identity; New Mexico made it the official state question in 1996. Christmas, ordering both, dates from the late 1980s as restaurants tracked tourist indecision.
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