The Great Chile Book: [A Cookbook]

A nice little pamphlet, but should not be taken as an exhaustive treatise on the subject. The (nominal) author is a cook, and the approach is from a culinary perspective. There is a bit of history (he trained as an anthropologist), virtually nothing about botany or horticulture.can't complain about the man sticking to what he knows, and he can cook- I used to eat at one of his early restaurants in Berkeley. He does his best to disentangle terminology, but some of it is beyond help- west coast sellers are getting worse about the whole Poblano/Ancho/Pasilla/Mulato mixup, and the chile-chili-chilli thing is hopeless; how 300 million people can all have different opinions about the relative meanings of these three words I don't know, but they manage it. What it does do is give brief rundowns and good pictures of a number of peppers, some advice on uses and possible substitutions, and a few recipes, mostly as examples. If you're looking for a cooks handbook of peppers, this is a pretty good one. He includes all types of peppers from around the world, even bells, under the name "chiles"- don't like it semantically, but at any rate this book is not limited to the Latin American varieties.

My family cooks with chiles/peppers a lot and I have been trying to explore some family recipes. I have been using this book to help guide me in the use of many different types of chiles/peppers as I use them in recipes. This book is also just an interesting, fun book to open on any random page and learn a little something.

It is missing a few common chilies but is still a good reference book.

A lot of nice pictures but covers more of the dried than I would have preferred. It makes a nice coffee table book and read for folks that only know the general grocery store varieties of chilies.

A good beginning for an amateur like me.

Great description of Chiles. (This was replacement for copy lost in move, so obviously liked it.)

This is the best book on peppers (fresh) and chiles (dried peppers). The book provides in-depth information for the peppers and chiles: the name of the fresh pepper and its name when dried to become a chile; alternate names; description of the taste; size (length, width); foods in which the pepper or chile is used. Great book, even for just reading if you are interested in peppers & chiles.

I decided to purchased a"NEW" book but received a water damaged one instead. The first few pages were actually stuck together and as you can see from the photo the cover is damaged as well.

How can I understand a recipe from Mexico or Yucatan without exact knowledge of which is which, the foreign chile names makes me confused. How hot is cascabel or chipotle, what does seco mean? The Great Chile Book is small enough to be used in daily kitchen work, and comprehensive enough to answer all types of questions.The hottest chile described is Habanero, but newer even hotter chiles have been cultivated since 1992, when the book was published. But most likely you will never encounter extremly hot chiles in any printed recipe.Some existing recipes are included in the last part of the book. Make a chile sauce from scratch, and taste the difference, it's enchantingly new and at once familiar.

Fantastic book, informative and well presented.

It is a nice bokk which has met my expectations. It is written for beginners and experts alike, so it is a useful guide

nice

Shows colour variations of individual chillies and in the dried section covers the same chillies often again. Nice for people just getting into chillies. Has excellent pictures so makes great coffee table book. If you are looking for extensive lists and information, this is not the book for you.