Chasing Chiles

April 1, 2011

Three self-described "gastronauts" plumb climate change through the piquant prism of chile peppers.

The journey is the destination as the earnest trio launch their "spice ship" throughout the United States and Mexico to learn how shifting weather patterns have been affecting the noble pepper's destiny--and the fate of those who rely on the crop. The authors--a chef, an agroecologist and an ethnobotanist--rely on listening (and, of course, eating) during their one-year odyssey, harvesting anecdotes to better understand the global dilemma. "We had a hunch that climate change wasn't just out there--in the polar ice caps and in receding glaciers--but in here, in our food system," they write. On their travels, the authors meet men like Fernando Niño Estudillo, a spice trader in Sonora who describes his recent quandary: "I've been ten years in the business; most years I drive truckloads of chiltepines to Tijuana myself. Only this last year has the wild chile crop ever failed me...I didn't even make a single trip to the border." But it's not all serious--the trio relishes chiles, after all. In Florida, as they prepare to dig into a jar of datil peppers in white vinegar, they write, "We smiled at one another like old junkies who have just discovered that someone left a couple of joints in their midst."

The occasionally florid writing notwithstanding, the book provides well-crafted regional recipes and edifying passages about the surveyed chiles.

(COPYRIGHT (2011) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

April 15, 2011
For many, climate change seems an abstract idea. Friese, Kraig Kraft, and Gary Paul Nabhan set out to convince readers that climate change already has produced significant effects on a food product many have come to rely on, the chili pepper. The three authors, an ethnobiologist, an agroecologist, and a chef, travel back roads to find out how the worlds chile crop has been coping. In northern Florida, they visit a diverse bunch of farmers who grow datil peppers, long esteemed by connoisseurs of hot sauce. Severe tropical storms and wide swings in temperatures have left datil pepper crops vulnerable to disease. In Sonoran Desert lands, they discover that foragers of chiltepin peppers suffer less, due to the wild nature of these chiles, which inhibits mass agricultural exploitation. The trio finds that even the relatively high Louisiana land, where Tabasco peppers flourish, has experienced severe flooding. Some recipes included.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)