Customer Reviews

Peppers: The Domesticated Capsicums

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First published in 1984, Peppers is one of the most beautiful books about any food plant we've ever seen. Author Jean Andrews is not only the artist behind 34 full color plates of the world's capsicums, she is also a thorough historian of food whose work has influenced many books about capsicums that followed hers. Peppers is to the capsicum family what Redcliffe Salaman's The History and Social Influence of the Potato is to solanum tuberosum, with the bonus of color illustrations. Andrews' book explores the origins of the plant, its travels beyond South America, its biological and economic story, its multiple varieties, its most recent high tech implications, and ends with several recipes, and a photographic glossary of botanical terms. Any student of food plants will find repeated value in this book.

I bought this book as a chemist looking for information on the chilli pepper. I certainly found it. The book is exquisitely illustrated with numerous colour plates, photographs and drawings. No excuse for confusing your Habanero with your Pimento. It has also got a very detailed bibliography. In between the covers there is a detailed account of the history of peppers, their biology and their uses. The author belongs to the prevailing culture that dictates that chemical structures should not appear in a popular science text, but that's my only criticism. I look forward to reading it again.

There is no doubt that Peppers: The Domesticated Capsicums contains heaps of useful information about the origins, culinary uses, production and management of peppers. But where it really stands out is in the stunningly detailed and colored drawings rendered by the author; all the more striking for the large format in which this book is published. In looking at my shelves full of books covering a wide range of plants and horticultural crops the only one I can see that even comes close to being comparable for its botanical illustrations is Lanner's Conifers of California. Round out your bookshelf with The Pepper Garden and Peppers of the World by DeWitt and Bosland, the AVDRC's Pepper Diseases: A Field Guide and the Grower's IPM Guide for Florida Tomato and Pepper Production from the University of Florida and you will have all the references you should need to quench your burning desire for knowledge on this most pungent of plants.

Andrew's text is a terrific technical work on domesticated peppers of all sorts, tecnically referred to as capsicums. While the work is not specifically designed for use by cooks and chefs, my opinion is that any chef would have a void in his or her professional training if they fail to read it.

This is a "coffee table book," very large, and 186 pages in length. The Table of Contents reveals much about what the reader can expect to find in the text:

-- Historical Background
-- Pre-Columbian Domestication
-- Early European Observers
-- Review of the Literature
-- Diagnostic Descriptions
-- Biology
-- Agronomy
-- Economic and Other Uses
-- Thirty-four Cultivars
-- Preparing and Serving

There are also two appendices which include Events Featuring Peppers, and Seed Sources. The 34 cultivars mentioned in the Contents are beautufully illustrated (full-page) at the beginning of the book, yielded up in color plates. There is also a nice Illustrated Glossary near the end of the book with actual photographs of the pepper fruits and blossoms.

This 1995 "New Edition" would make a terrific gift book for nearly anyone (that's how I got my copy) because it is intelligently-written and profusely illustrated. By reading this volume I learned more about peppers and their uses than I will probably ever get to generate in practice. Dr. Andrews was well-qualified to publish this work and readers will be pleased to find that she has even included medical uses for the various peppers. Highly recommended.

I first read this book some 15 years ago. I had gone to a low fat, largely vegetarian diet for health reasons, and was saved from the world of bland by the chile pepper. My wife gave Jean Andrews' book to me as a gift after I eventually expressed a mystical love for the capsicum as a salvation from culinary boredom. Ms. Andrews rendered the wonderful illustrations of various pepper species as part of her work toward getting a Masters of Fine Arts in the Art Department at the University of Texas in the early 80s. She developed, in the process of this work, an interest in the culinary, cultural, aesthtical, and botanical nature of the wonderful wold of the capsicum. This is a classic tome devoted to the chile pepper. Ms. Andrews has written several other books on the chile, and is regarded by lovers of the capsicum as something of a saint.

Andrews is an agent of the dominant culture. She homogenizes chiles and attributes Christopher Columbus for discovering them. In fact, the book is dedicated to this age of exploration tyrant. What a joke! She gives a nice little backstory about why chiles are referred to as peppers and how chiles are the number one condiment in the world.
Wake up Andrews! Chile is not a condiment! It's a staple of various aboriginal cultures throughout the world: from Asia to the Americas. Andrews perpetuates the genocide of these cultures by degrading them to condiments! And this updated version of the book includes so-called new medicinal uses of chile. The aboriginal people of the world have been using chile for medicinal purposes for centuries upon centuries! So, what are we to do now? Attribute the medicinal discovery to Andrews, just as she attributed Columbus's "discovery"? Please. Orwell warned us that whoever controls the present now, controls the past. Therefore, the dominant culture can rewrite (continually) history as they see fit. Praising their alleged heroes for introducing "new" discoveries.