Chile Beef Heats Up Between Governors Of Colorado, New Mexico

David Moye
(Photo: handout/handout)
(Photo: handout/handout)

The heat is rising in a tiff between the governors of Colorado and New Mexico, and it’s all because of chile peppers.

It started on Saturday when Colorado Gov. Jared Polis (D) posted a message on Facebook bragging that his state’s Pueblo chiles would soon be sold in Whole Foods Markets in Colorado, Kansas, Idaho and Utah.

Polis also burned neighboring state New Mexico in the process:

“New Mexico stores will unfortunately not be offering the best chile and will instead keep offering inferior New Mexico chile.”

Polis continued his hot take on chile peppers on Tuesday, according to the Santa Fe New Mexican newspaper.

“Some say Hatch and other New Mexico chiles are flavorful, but it is widely known that the Pueblo chile is the best in the world,” he said in a statement.

New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, a fellow Democrat and a colleague of Polis’ when their service in the U.S. House overlapped, was having none of it from him. She told the New Mexican:

“If Pueblo chile were any good, surely it would have been on national shelves before now. But if Gov. Polis wants to go chile to chile, I assure him New Mexico can bring the heat,” she said. “New Mexico Hatch chile is, has always been and will always be the greatest in the world.

She suggested Whole Foods is only selling Colorado’s Pueblo chiles out of pity:

“It’s very sportsmanlike of Whole Foods to give an inferior chile a chance, but most importantly I’m glad to know that they’ll still be carrying Hatch chile so customers around the country can continue to enjoy the best of the best.”

On Wednesday, Polis decided to spice up the beef by hatching a challenge to Lujan Grisham to meet him in Trinidad, Colorado ― just a few miles from the state’s border with New Mexico ― for a chile tasteoff.

It should be noted that Polis’s first challenge tweet misspelled “chile” as “chili,” a mistake that also got him roasted by Lujan Grisham:

As of Wednesday afternoon, Lujan Grisham hasn’t officially accepted Polis’ challenge. And she did not immediately respond to inquiries from HuffPost.

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