A Little Dab o’ Dat’l’ll Do Ya
April 12, 2022 12:17 PM   Subscribe

The United States is home to both wild varieties and landraces of Capsicum annuum, the species of pepper domesticated across Mesoamerica and established in the US Southwest by Ancestral Puebloans. More on those peppers in the future, but less known is the single US landrace of Capsicum chinense, the fiery peppers domesticated variously in the Amazon rainforest and the Caribbean islands.

Meet the dátil pepper, a sibling of the famous habanero with a (slightly!) milder, fruitier taste and a more intense, room-filling aroma. It’s been fondly likened to a drop of Florida sun. And it’s been fanatically grown, consumed, and mythologized for over 100 years by residents of St Augustine and the surrounding St Johns County, in Florida.

The pepper was most eagerly adopted by descendants of indentured workers from Minorca, Spain who were brought to New Smyrna, Florida in 1767 by the Scottish colonist Andrew Turnbull. His plantation, where they labored alongside others both indentured and enslaved, was poorly conceived and brutally managed; much of the workforce fled to nearby St Augustine (which, being the oldest continuously-inhabited colonial city in US, was conveniently already there to flee to), where they were granted refuge and settled. These Florida Minorcans gradually developed a cuisine and set of traditions which preserve their identity to this day, and the dátil is heavily involved.

Heavily involved, but not in the way usually imagined in St Augustine until recently. The story had been that the pepper, and the spicy cuisine redolent of its unmistakable aroma, stretched all the way back to Minorca. It had some obvious issues, among them the inappropriate climate of the Balearic Islands for the crop and the lack of a similar cuisine there now or recorded. Eventually, local historians began a hunt for the true story and one, David Nolan, dug up a 1937 article in the St Augustine Record by an earlier city historian who had sifted through records to trace the local arrival of the dátil to the 1880s, when a St Augustine jelly maker named Esteban Valls sent an order for seeds to Santiago de Cuba.

Intrigued by the development, chef and food historian Maricel Presilla, herself a native of Santiago de Cuba, checked a provincial dictionary from 1836 and found dátil listed among the peppers “for its resemblance to its namesake [date]”. The 1849 edition of the dictionary clarified that “the aroma is strong and arousing” and it “is among the most used”. You can read the entry in this 1862 edition.

Nearby Cuba might seem like an obvious enough origin, but it was initially met with some confusion. Cuban cuisine isn’t just not very spicy for a Caribbean island, it’s downright mild; the habanero is named for Havana, but it hasn’t been grown or eaten in quantity there within memory (similar to the datil, it is now native in an adopted home). Yet, as with all the islands, Capsicums annuum, frutescens, and chinense were all grown and used in abundance prior to colonization; it would seem the taste for heat remained in Cuba longer than has been appreciated.

But regardless of where it came from, the dátil is celebrated at home in St Augustine. From its annual festival to its typically ketchup-based sauces with indulgent names like Dat’l Do-It and Dats Nice (note their inarguable guarantee: “If you don’t like this sauce, you won’t buy another bottle, we guarantee it!”); and from rapidly growing farms to single crop gardens.

If you wish to grow the dátil, my research led me to trust the generational seedline offered at the last link. I’m growing it this year and the seedlings have been very healthy.
posted by thoroughburro (13 comments total)

This post was deleted for the following reason: Poster's Request -- Brandon Blatcher



 
I can’t wait to dive into this excellent post. Thanks!
posted by MonkeyToes at 12:23 PM on April 12, 2022


I learned about Datil peppers three years ago on Metafilter in a post about Minorcan food. What a great new post, I really like the framing on the historical research. The datil pepper sauce we got really did have a lovely fruity flavor. Since then I visited St. Augustine but struck out on eating any datil peppers there, all I saw was some tourist packaged sauces and jellies. Nice town though!
posted by Nelson at 12:29 PM on April 12, 2022 [1 favorite]


Mmmm - a few years ago, I really enjoyed it in dark chocolate ice cream at this local St. Augustine place... (Apparently no longer on the menu, bummer)
posted by rozcakj at 12:29 PM on April 12, 2022


Hell yeah, I'm in St. Augustine and growing datils right now. This post rules!
posted by saladin at 12:49 PM on April 12, 2022 [3 favorites]


posted by thoroughburro

On point.
posted by mhoye at 12:56 PM on April 12, 2022 [1 favorite]


I've been growing datils for a few years now. They are so good, with a fruity heat that hits primarily on the front end and dissipates quickly, leaving a bright endorphin glow in its wake. I like to cook them into a vinegary hot sauce, but they're also excellent in bread, on pizza, and in gumbo.
posted by Tuba Toothpaste at 12:58 PM on April 12, 2022 [6 favorites]


Can someone more familiar with datil sauces share a few recommendations? I admit I'm a little turned off by the ketchup-y sounding ones, esp. made with corn syrup. But I'm also willing to concede that might be the 'classic' method of compounding. (And thanks in advance!)
posted by Insert Clever Name Here at 1:33 PM on April 12, 2022


The sauce I liked was Old St. Augustine's Venom Datil Pepper Hot Sauce. It's been awhile but my memory (and the ingredient list) say it's a Cajun-style hot sauce, like Tabasco. Fermented peppers vinegar, and salt. No sugar. I also recall the sauce having a pleasant fruity flavor, like habanero but more intensely fruity. I don't mean it tastes like orange juice! But the flavor leans more to fruit than the smoky flavor of dried roasted chiles.

Now I'm curious about Datil Pepper Bloody Mary Mix. Although the fruitiness of the pepper may make more sense as a michelada.
posted by Nelson at 2:42 PM on April 12, 2022 [2 favorites]


(After some more research, it does seem like a lot of 'from scratch' recipes call for ketchup, so I'm willing to concede that's part of the traditional way of making these sauces. Now maybe to find one minus HFCF/CF.)
posted by Insert Clever Name Here at 3:03 PM on April 12, 2022


I think a lot of the old guard datil sauces like Dat'l Do It were designed to be a condiment for dipping fried shrimp and so they're kind of like glorified cocktail sauce. Not my cup of tea. Some of the newer ones like the "venom" one Nelson mentioned are definitely better and highlight the pepper's flavor more instead of burying it under ketchup.

To me the highest and best use of datil as a condiment is to pack a jar with them, fill it to the top with white vinegar, and then use that vinegar to season greens or green beans or soups or what have you.
posted by saladin at 4:07 PM on April 12, 2022 [5 favorites]


Very exciting, I ordered some seeds from Pepper Joe's and mrs. kingless says she'll help me germinate them. Wish me luck.
posted by kingless at 4:47 PM on April 12, 2022 [1 favorite]


mrs. kingless says she'll help me germinate them

Hey, get a room! 😄
posted by Greg_Ace at 4:54 PM on April 12, 2022 [2 favorites]


You see a fair number of Habaneros and Scotch Bonnets at the grocers and produce stands here in SE Florida, but I do not think I have encountered Datils outside of the sauce aisle.

The systematics of peppers is a vexing topic, worse maybe than citrus, for figuring out what's a natural species and what's some kind of man-made hybrid.
posted by Aardvark Cheeselog at 1:51 PM on April 13, 2022


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