Chasing Chiles: Hot Spots along the Pepper Trail

by Gary Paul Nabhan, Kraig Kraft, Gary Paul Nabhan

Chasing Chiles looks at both the future of place-based foods and the effects of climate change on agriculture through the lens of the chile pepper-from the farmers who cultivate this iconic crop to the cuisines and cultural traditions in which peppers play a huge role.

Why chile peppers? Both a spice and a vegetable, chile peppers have captivated imaginations and taste buds for thousands of years. Native to Mesoamerica and the New World, chiles are currently grown on every continent, since their relatively recent introduction to Europe (in the early 1500s via Christopher Columbus). Chiles are delicious, dynamic, and very diverse-they have been rapidly adopted, adapted, and assimilated into numerous world cuisines, and while malleable to a degree, certain heirloom varieties are deeply tied to place and culture-but now accelerating climate change may be scrambling their terroir.

Over a year-long journey, three pepper-loving gastronauts-an agroecologist, a chef, and an ethnobotanist-set out to find the real stories of America's rarest heirloom chile varieties, and learn about the changing climate from farmers and other people who live by the pepper, and who, lately, have been adapting to shifting growing conditions and weather patterns. They put a face on an issue that has been made far too abstract for our own good.

Chasing Chiles is not your archetypal book about climate change, with facts and computer models delivered by a distant narrator. On the contrary, these three dedicated chileheads look and listen, sit down to eat, and get stories and recipes from on the ground-in farmers' fields, local cafes, and the desert-scrub hillsides across North America. From the Sonoran Desert to Santa Fe and St. Augustine (the two oldest cities in the U.S.), from the marshes of Avery Island in Cajun Louisiana to the thin limestone soils of the Yucatan, this book looks at how and why climate change will continue to affect our palates and our producers, and how it already has.

Genres: Nonfiction, Food, Food Writing

193 pages, Paperback

First published March 2, 2011

About the author

Gary Paul Nabhan is an internationally-celebrated nature writer, seed saver, conservation biologist and sustainable agriculture activist who has been called "the father of the local food movement" by Utne Reader, Mother Earth News, Carleton College and Unity College. Gary is also an orchard-keeper, wild forager and Ecumenical Franciscan brother in his hometown of Patagonia, Arizona near the Mexican border. For his writing and collaborative conservation work, he has been honored with a MacArthur "genius" award, a Southwest Book Award, the John Burroughs Medal for nature writing, the Vavilov Medal, and lifetime achievement awards from the Quivira Coalition and Society for Ethnobiology.

--from the author's website

Reviews

[Josh · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not quite what I was expecting. I am a chile pepper fanatic and thought this book would be a history of and guide to different peppers in the United States and Mexico. It is that book to a certain extent, but it is also an exploration by the book's coauthors (a chef, an ethnobotanist, and an agro-ecologist) of how climate change has affected the crops and growing seasons of the local chiles grown, cooked, and sold by specific regional farms, restaurants, and businesses. Informative and readable, I almost had to downgrade it to two stars because of the authors' references to themselves as "gastronauts" on a "spice odyssey" in their "spice ship," the unfortunate description of a deceased colleague as having gone to "Pepper Heaven," and too much cutesy alliteration. The latter problem hit its nadir in the opening two sentences of Chapter Six: "As we learned in nursery school, or on the playgrounds of our youth, Peter Piper once picked a peck of pickled peppers. If Peter picked his peck of peppers presently, plenty of the pepper plants present in that peck would be precariously imperiled." If you can get past that hurdle, the rest of the book is a solid read with a lot of great recipes for dishes featuring the chiles discussed.

[Andy Phillips · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting tour of the Southern US through the lens of chili peppers and climate change. Packed with recipies for the peppers mentioned that make it a book worth owning outside of its educational quality even if it may be a bit dated in regards to the trajectory things took it is a great glimpse into culinary tastes and reactions to climate change in a post Katrina South.

[Tuck · Rating 3 out of 5]

and catching! written by committee so kind of uneven and also cursory treatment of Sonora MX, Datil peppers in Florida wasn't too bad, again just hitting the high spots in Yucatan and Habeneros, Tabascos in Louisiana, but the chapter on New Mexico peppers is superlative. And a bonus chapter on some interesting local (usa) peppers that are near extinction: Fish pepper, and Beaver Dam (i am growing Beaver Dams in backyard right now that are SOOO DELICIOUS). And finally a summation of what local foods mean in a changing climate: 1. more diversity would be better, though its the opposite of where we are heading [thanks monsanto] 2. local farmers and foodies need to be incorporated in scientists work on climate change 3. people need to vote with their bellies (and at the ballot box) to support local, diverse foods and shun monsanto like food regimes. This will reduce your footprint, get you more in-tune to local, and increase diversity 4. climate change is just ONE factor impacting loss of cultivars and local cultures, there's also wally world, ford, block busters, etc and should be treated as such 5. Empower local farmers, ranchers, foragers, fishers, chefs, consumers, educators to be co-designers of local solutions to global change. AND has very nice recipes.

[Nip · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent micro-study of global warming as experienced by those who cultivate heirloom chile peppers in the Americas.

[Alec · Rating 3 out of 5]

A basic but enjoyable piece of culinary history that gets kinda long winded towards the end. Highly recommend for anyone interested in the biology of chilies, or the history of new world agriculture.

[Gypsi · Rating 1 out of 5]

In Chasing Chiles, a chef, an agroecologist and an ethnobotanist take a year long trip to search out the rarest and best peppers. The book is a nonfiction account of their trip, with each chapter focusing on a particular chile pepper and interspersed with their interpretation of global warming's effect on that pepper.

The book vacillates between an unnamed first person narrator (which one of the three?!?) and a third person point of view. The anecdotes described are not interesting. The heavily didactic climate change message is weakened by the lack of true research and credibility of the authors. The overall writing style is a mess, and would have benefited from some honest editing.

Over all, this is not the unique and interesting adventure it was advertised to be, but rather a nearly unreadable attempt at scientific discussion.

[Tess · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well, over all I enjoyed the subject matter - I had no idea there were so many different types of chiles! The recipes and backgrounds of them were really interesting.
How it all tied into global warming, besides that everything is pretty screwed, was harder to enjoy. The authors aren't meterologists or climatologists, or basically anyone with a weather or environmental degree. So their discussion of the effects of global weather change felt flat and pretty conversational, rather than informative.
Despite this, I did learn about one of my favorite foods and found a lot of good recipes which were included in this book. 4 out of 5 for pure enjoyment, rather than a serious look at climate change.

[Dree · Rating 3 out of 5]

A decent read, but not quite what I was expecting. This isn't about chasing down yummy traditional chile recipes. Rather, it's about how chile farmers in Mexico, New Mexico, LA, and Florida are dealing with the climate change they are already seen. So, interesting, but not quite the food book I was expecting.

And there are some recipes--but not all are traditional.

There is one weird section where they hold a huge discussion, and it's all quotes. I'm sure it would be fascinating to see this discussion live, but it's hard to read.

[Jacquie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ordinarily I'm a huge Gary Nabhan fan but this book fell a little flat and was a bit repetitive. As a big chile head myself I loved learning about some of the culture around these fantastic peppers (I had to restock my habanero supply to make it through) but overall wouldn't recommend based on the writing.

[Brenda · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a good non-fiction book that looks at the farming of different types of chile peppers (heirloom and more popular such as tabasco). It showed how farmers have had to change their farming practices and locations of fields because of climate changes.

[Naticia · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a book about farmers, and farming, and chiles, and eating, and how all of those things are changing in an increasingly uncertain climate. I loved the recipes, the stories of the farmers, and the histories of the heirloom varieties. Inspiring and mouth-watering!

[Erika · Rating 5 out of 5]

In its combination of ethnobotany, agriculture, and culinary adventure, this is a very unique book, engaging, informative, and delectable all at once.

[Virginia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Parts were dry as the desert they were travelling and parts were wonderful? Perhaps a result of 3 authors?