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Peppers of the Americas: The Remarkable Capsicums That Forever Changed Flavor [A Cookbook] Hardcover – August 1, 2017
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Winner of the 2018 International Association of Culinary Professionals (IACP) Cookbook Award for "Reference & Technical"
A beautiful culinary and ethnobotanical survey of the punch-packing ingredient central to today's multi-cultural palate, with more than 40 pan-Latin recipes from a three-time James Beard Award-winning author and chef-restaurateur.
From piquillos and shishitos to padrons and poblanos, the popularity of culinary peppers (and pepper-based condiments, such as Sriracha and the Korean condiment gochujang) continue to grow as more consumers try new varieties and discover the known health benefits of Capsicum, the genus to which all peppers belong. This stunning visual reference to peppers now seen on menus, in markets, and beyond, showcases nearly 200 varieties (with physical description, tasting notes, uses for cooks, and beautiful botanical portraits for each). Following the cook's gallery of varieties, more than 40 on-trend Latin recipes for spice blends, salsas, sauces, salads, vegetables, soups, and main dishes highlight the big flavors and taste-enhancing capabilities of peppers.
- Print length352 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherLorena Jones Books
- Publication dateAugust 1, 2017
- Dimensions8.3 x 1.2 x 10.3 inches
- ISBN-100399578927
- ISBN-13978-0399578922
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Editorial Reviews
Review
—José Andrés, chef/owner, minibar by José Andrés and ThinkFoodGroup
“Maricel Presilla’s Peppers of the Americas is a deeply researched, eye-opening, beautiful guide to one of the world’s most intriguing foods.”
—Harold McGee, author of On Food and Cooking
“Maricel Presilla—the planet’s foremost authority on the cuisines of Latin America—has written the most definitive guide to peppers ever created. It is an essential book for every cook who cares about flavor.”
—James Oseland, author of Cradle of Flavor and Top Chef Masters judge
“In this thorough work, Maricel Presilla brings her fine scholarship to an ingredient that virtually all Americans use, deftly traveling a great distance and wresting clarity from complexity. A truly impressive book.”
—Deborah Madison, author of Vegetable Literacy and In My Kitchen
“Presilla is both “botanical sleuth” and chef, presenting a scholarly and stunning visual guide to peppers in this definitive guide.”
—PW Starred Review
"Our test kitchen's go-to chile pepper resource!"
—Martha Stewart Living
"Like Betty Fussell’s The Story of Corn, Presilla’s work is essential to our understanding of an ingredient that’s native to the Americas. It’s also absorbing and just plain fun: a hot summertime read for pepper people everywhere."
—Atlanta Journal-Constitution
“There’s an astounding amount of information here—historical, botanical, and even linguistic. It almost accidentally functions as a crash course in food archaeology, and contains an explainer on the hot hot heat of capsacin, the compound that makes food spicy. And somehow Presilla manages to present the vast majority of this potentially very dry subject matter almost conversationally, as though she is walking you through her backyard pepper pots, glass of wine in hand, telling you anecdotes about each. … The whole package is enough to make me reconsider single subject cookbooks. While I still think some can veer flabby, afterthoughts of publishers’ trying to plug up gaps in their catalog, Peppers of the Americas is different. Scholarly, even. And anything that manages to be well-researched and charming will always have a spot on my bookshelves—especially when it’s a book as spicy as this one.”
—Paula Forbes, Food52
"You don’t expect a botanical ethnography on peppers to send shivers up your spine, but Peppers of the Americas does just that. With academic rigor, Presilla examines the Capsicum genus’ pre-Hispanic origins, delving headlong into the epic collision between the Old and New World that sent peppers across the globe."
—NBCNews.com
"For the chile lover, the pepper obsessive and the cook who wants to learn everything there is to know about a single subject, this is the book."
—NPR's Here & Now Best Cookbooks of 2017
About the Author
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
At the end of September 2009, I was winding up a trip to Peru with a visit to Cusco, the great capital of the Inca Empire. As I walked through the Temple of the Sun, musing about the trappings of ancient royal power, my phone rang. It was someone in Washington, DC. At first I thought it might be a prank, but after some confusion, I gathered that the White House was asking me to cook for the first presidential Fiesta Latina, a salute to Latin American culture and music.
When I returned home to New Jersey and continued the conversation, I realized that I was to be responsible for the entire menu with less than two weeks’ notice. The household staff was expecting me to settle innumerable details for a 400-guest event (even down to the flower arrangements). I knew this was the opportunity for peppers, the great staple food of the New World, from the Caribbean and Mesoamerica to the Andes, to tell their story. When the staff in Washington asked what kind of flowers I wanted to order, I replied, “No flowers . . . peppers!” And that was the sight that eventually greeted guests as they entered the Blue Room on the evening of the Fiesta Latina: tall cylindrical glass vases holding glowing rainbows of green, yellow, ivory, lavender, purple, orange, and red New World peppers in every shape.
The Fiesta Latina was a pivotal moment in my relationship with peppers—or capsicums, chiles, “chillis,” or ajíes, depending on one’s culinary culture. When I picked up the phone in Cusco, I was already deep into a personal pepper exploration that had begun decades earlier in Latin America and continues to this day. This book—not an encyclopedic catalog, but a highly subjective record of my own garden and kitchen encounters with these remarkable plants—is one result of that decades-long fascination.
The story of my backyard pepper laboratory begins in the summer of 2002, when an overnight thunderstorm sent a giant Norway maple tree crashing down into my backyard in Weehawken, New Jersey. I mourned the old shade tree but rejoiced that it and its shade-producing companion, a massive wisteria vine draped around its branches, would no longer block my dreams of a sunny backyard kitchen garden.
Unwisely rushing to plant all the sun-loving herbs that I’d longed for, I soon found that I’d created my own little shop of horrors, an aromatic menace with mint, lemon balm, and epazote dominating every inch of my yard and even sprouting from cracks in the brick-paved patio. Plan B was to concentrate on something less invasive. I instantly thought of hot peppers, which I had been gradually discovering during years of travels and explorations while researching Gran Cocina Latina, my book on the cuisines of Latin America, not from my own less fiery Cuban culinary heritage.
My upbringing in Cuba had been a great help in talking to non-Latin cooks about the full diversity and excitement of New World peppers—not because I grew up knowing all about peppers, but because I didn’t. My maternal aunts, the marvelous cooks in our family, scarcely ever ventured beyond the perfumed but sweet ají cachucha, the gentle bell pepper, and a few other mild varieties, either fresh or canned, though my father simply adored cooking with a tiny, very hot wild pepper called ají guaguao. Living in Miami and New York City as a refugee, and later as a citizen, I discovered the cuisines of Mexico and India, two important countries for peppers. This is when I truly began to appreciate the magic of hot peppers in cooking, which my father had so well understood when we lived in Cuba. It took many more years for me to thoroughly explore the pepper map of the Americas.
Product details
- Publisher : Lorena Jones Books; NO-VALUE edition (August 1, 2017)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 352 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0399578927
- ISBN-13 : 978-0399578922
- Item Weight : 3.37 pounds
- Dimensions : 8.3 x 1.2 x 10.3 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #280,906 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #152 in Mexican Cooking, Food & Wine
- #333 in Vegetable Cooking (Books)
- #1,052 in Celebrity & TV Show Cookbooks
- Customer Reviews:
About the author

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I have to shout it to you: I have not been disappointed in Peppers of the Americas!
Before I delved into the book, I first went looking for mention of my favorite—and somewhat obscure—pepper. It’s not a hot one, and from my Caribbean background, I know it as aji dulce. And of course--as I trusted it would be--it was right there listed in the index with three references and two recipes! And one of those two recipes is a variation on one I make when I am missing the Islands and willing to dip into my dwindling bag of aji dulce from the freezer. I thought: If this book has aji dulce in it, it is very comprehensive. I very seldom find it mentioned in Latin cookbooks. Presilla's descriptive words on dulce aji are right on. And there are pictures, too.
I mention my personal favorite pepper and how I found it in this book for one reason: You have your personal favorite(s), too. And you will go looking for it/them in this book. And I’m pretty positive you will find them listed—with recipes, with interesting information and descriptive words, with pictures.
And, like me, after being assured that your favorites were not forgotten, you will read through the book and learn about all the others. It is a comprehensive book. It is a beautiful book. If you love your peppers—hot or sweet—chili head or pepper lover, cook or gardener, or a combo of all—you will be happy with this book.
It is a reference book and it is a cookbook. I know I will refer to it over and over again. It is beautiful enough to be considered a cocktail table book. It is not dull, nor is it dry: It is bursting with color and luscious and mouth-watering descriptions.
The book delves into the history of peppers, beginning in prehistoric Bolivia and continuing through their travels throughout the world, and into research in the present. You will learn pepper anatomy, and learn about their heat. There are pictures of the fruit, the flower, and the seeds. You will learn something about how to identify the different members of the capsicum family.
Photography and drawings are beautiful and varied. Pictures are clear and large enough to see details.
You will find an excellent photo for each fresh and dried pepper, along with its history, description of the plant, its heat and flavor, and how best to use it.
There is a chapter with helpful hints for growing peppers, and one for “cooking with peppers”. Very helpful to me are the instructions for drying peppers and grinding into powders and roasting them, making pepper vinegars, fermenting hot peppers, and making other pepper condiments. (I especially liked the pepper-spiced pineapple vinegar, with vinegar made from fermenting strips of pineapple skin.)
It may not seem like 40 recipes is a lot, but considering that Presilla provides a wealth of information regarding techniques I mention in the previous paragraph, potential is there for way more than forty recipes. As I read, creative thoughts were pounding and swirling around in my head! And when I counted, there were more than 50, with some recipes within recipes.
There is a decent bibliography and a thorough index. There is an invaluable page of resources, too.
Stunning photography In the entire book.
The last third of the book give some recipe ideas but not exact recipes. One of the more innovative ideas is the pepper Leaf Chimichurri.
Overall a great book.
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on February 18, 2022
Stunning photography In the entire book.
The last third of the book give some recipe ideas but not exact recipes. One of the more innovative ideas is the pepper Leaf Chimichurri.
Overall a great book.
She starts with the early cultivation starting in South America. Then comes some botanical information about peppers. Next, Columbus arrives, and peppers spread around the world and become integral parts of many cuisines.
Following this background comes an encyclopedic section, covering first fresh peppers and then dried peppers. While a great reference, you'll have to be really hard core to simply read it through.
She then discusses growing peppers, although her experiences are based on the limited growing season in New Jersey. As a Southern Californian I can grow peppers as perennials, and have had plants last for years, sometimes even fruiting in the winter.
She also covers buying fresh peppers, drying fresh peppers, and buying dried peppers.
And, of course, cooking with peppers. Both general advice and also recipes, including sauces, condiments, and full up dishes.
Oh, did I mention the book is full of wonderful color pictures? Mostly of peppers, of course!
The author's love of peppers infuses the book. If you love peppers you'll want this book.
I received a copy for review from the publisher, but ordered a copy of the final version for my library.
If you enjoy growing and eating peppers, this is the bool for you
Top reviews from other countries
The book begins with an exhaustively researched and fascinating history of peppers, starting with their first appearance in Bolivia and Peru, and then tracking their branching into the five main species: Capsicum annum; C. frutescens; C. chinense;, C. pubescens and C. baccatum, by looking at archaeological findings going back eight thousand years and up to the Hispanic conquests, and then the writings of Spanish and Portuguese invaders, missionaries and travellers, onto the spread to the rest of Europe (particularly through the monasteries), to India, Asia, to Africa – basically everywhere – through recipe books, travellers, physicians and botanists reports … This is a completely new way to examine the history of Columbus’ trips to discover the Americas – via the continent’s food and food related customs. From there, it is a history of how the now regarded as traditional chilli laden cuisines of Thailand, Szechuan China evolved, and how the agribusiness of producing peppers has grown and mutated worldwide, along with its potential ecological and social repurcussions.
The final section is the recipes. I have tried a few, such as the excellent “Red Snapper in a Spicy Creole Sauce”, “Panfried Pork Steaks in Guajillo-Puya Adobo” and the very moreish “Spicy Pickled Cucumber” (made that one twice). There are several that I still want to try, but will wait until I get the hardback book – and the correct peppers.
The recipe section by itself is not especially outstanding – though it does contain a wide range of good recipes. But in combination with the encyclopaedia of peppers, you get a real insight into why you are asked to use particular peppers, what flavours, aromas and particular heat you should expect from the recipe, and which peppers could be used as possible substitutes. I feel I will now have the tools I need to re-examine recipes from other books, which also use peppers, to improve my cooking and understanding. As someone who has previously mainly categorised chillies according to their heat, I have had my eyes opened to how much I have been missing out on. Unlike the author, I cannot readily buy a variety of fresh peppers at local markets (despite living in London), but luckily can order some by mail order from The South Devon Chilli Farm (my order went in today!). So, soon I will embark on more pepper laden meals, and hopefully start growing some too.
This is an exceptional book for anyone interested in cooking, the history of food, world history, archaeology, botany, beautiful plants … Basically, it has something for everyone. I can hardly wait until my own hard copy arrives on my doorstep.
I received this copy from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review
Interessante sotto tutti gli aspetti.
Peccato che nelle schede analitiche delle centinaia di varietà presentate manchi il riferimento Scoville.
Libro solido, ben rilegato, bello; edito sotto i migliori auspici e commenti positivi di personalità della cucina internazionale (fondamentale l'apprezzamento di Harold McGee per la parte scientifica), e una delle novità più interessanti del 2017 nel settore enogastronomico.
Da non mancare.


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