Customer Reviews

Peppers: A Story of Hot Pursuits

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Amal Naj's "Peppers" is now more than ten years old, but, if anything, these hot darlings are even more in favor with the American public than they used to be. I'm sure Naj would add a chapter or two if he were writing today, but the book is nevertheless delightful. I particularly enjoyed Naj's coverage of the attempts to find possible living ancestors of modern day "chilies" in South America, and the importance such research has to the protection of the modern agricultural crop. His extensive writing on the war for the "Tabasco" trade mark is first-class storytelling. Of course, as a New Mexican, I do enjoy reading many pages of lore about our state's most important crop. The most flavorful peppers are indeed New Mexican.

(...)

Got a Hot-Head in your house? Someone that loves peppers and the hunt for the best hot sauce? This little gem is for you. Amal Naj writes everything you need to know about the pepper. Why it's hot, how the heat is contained and how it effects the food it's laid upon. This book is also a mini-travelog on the search for the great pepper. The Tabasco section is especially interesting. Your mouth will water just reading the first page. Makes a great gift book.

Being born in India you should expect Amal Naj to have been raised on peppers. Funnily enough his love for hot pursuits originated in Northern Ireland after living on potatoes and other bland foods for a long time. He sets of on a journey around the world tracking down peppers, salsas, stories of old and people in the pepper business. And what an amazing bunch.

From the huge farms in New Mexico to the highlands of Bolivia and on to Yucatan for a hot encounter with the habanero. A word of warning: If you are japanese dont eat in restaurants with Mayans in the kitchen.

Altogether a very enjoyable book and a good read for everybody who likes to bite into the pungent pods - and to be bitten back.

It's an exploration of various chile topics; chile ancestry, chile industry and agriculture, physiological aspects of chile eating. It was interesting and readable. I guess I wish it was more in depth on each topic (except the tabasco sauce section, which was depressing), and perhaps with photos; it seems a little lite, but this was before the recent waves of chile information. But it's very interesting and inspiriting and I don't even eat hot peppers straight (although they creep into my food more and more...)

This book was a great read despite the fact that one would not ordinarily expect it to be so given the subject matter. It was so well written that I found myself reading whole chapters of it out loud to my wife.

The author makes an obscure sublect (how many books have you read just on the lore of peppers?) enjoyable. The author covers the history of the subject all the way back to the first peppers growing wild in the South American mountains and brings it up to date including the new work being done in agricultural labs. Plus, he goes into the differences in types of peppers as well as a remarkable number of culinary and cultural aspects of the subject. All that, plus being a page turner.

After planting a growing five kinds of peppers (and bottling them for family and friends) I'm getting a second copy of "Peppers" to give to my son as a present. He likes hot peppers too so I know he will enjoy this well written and interesting book.

By the way, the book "Peppers" is not where I got the instructions for the growing and bottleing of the peppers, that came from a friend. But he, too, had a copy of "Peppers" and had enjoyed it greatly. It's a book for current, and future, pepper aficionados.