This is the exciting tale of how New Mexico's premier crop came to the Land of Enchantment. The story shows the importance of Native Americans who helped bring chile to New Mexico through a long journey with many dangers. Intertwined in the book is love and romance and the story of the influence of many cultures in New Mexico's history.

For more than ten thousand years, humans have been fascinated by a seemingly innocuous plant with bright-colored fruits that bite back when bitten. Ancient New World cultures from Mexico to South America combined these pungent pods with every conceivable meat and vegetable, as evident from archaeological finds, Indian artifacts, botanical observations, and studies of the cooking methods of the modern descendants of the Incas, Mayas, and Aztecs. In Chile Peppers: A Global History, Dave DeWitt, a world expert on chiles, travels from New Mexico across the Americas, Europe, Africa, and Asia chronicling the history, mystery, and mythology of chiles around the world and their abundant uses in seventy mouth-tingling recipes.

Originally published: Santa Fe, New Mexico: Clear Light Publishing, 2007.

"From a chile-laced Bean and Chicken Stew to a coriander-chile infused Zesty Meat Loaf or a Pork Loin in Green Sauce, this packs in chile recipes gleaned from New Mexican cooks' contributions. Enjoy a collection which uses the chile in everything from appetizers to desserts. "(Bookwatch)

Now available in a hardcover gift edition! Spanning three generations, Muy Bueno offers traditional old-world northern Mexican recipes from grandmother Jeusita's kitchen; comforting south of the border home-style dishes from mother Evangelina; and innovative Latin fusion recipes from daughters Yvette and Veronica. Muy Bueno has become one of the most popular Mexican cookbooks available. This new hardcover edition features a useful guide to Mexican pantry ingredients. Whether you are hosting a casual family gathering or an elegant dinner party, Muy Bueno has the perfect recipes for entertaining with Latin flair! You'll find classics like Enchiladas Montadas ("Stacked Enchiladas"); staples like Homemade Tortillas and Toasted Chile de Arbol Salsa; and light seafood appetizers like Shrimp Ceviche and Scallop and Cucumber Cocktail. Don't forget tempting Coconut Flan and daring, dazzling cocktails like Blood Orange Mezcal Margaritas and Persimmon Mojitos. There is truly something in Muy Bueno for every taste! This edition features more than 100 easy-to-follow recipes, a glossary of chiles with photos and descriptions of each variety, step-by-step instructions with photos for how to roast chiles, make Red Chile Sauce, and assemble tamales, a rich family history shared through anecdotes, photos, personal tips, and more, and stunning color photography throughout.

Chasing Chiles looks at both the future of place-based foods and the effects of climate change on agriculture through the lens of the chile pepper-from the farmers who cultivate this iconic crop to the cuisines and cultural traditions in which peppers play a huge role. Why chile peppers? Both a spice and a vegetable, chile peppers have captivated imaginations and taste buds for thousands of years. Native to Mesoamerica and the New World, chiles are currently grown on every continent, since their relatively recent introduction to Europe (in the early 1500s via Christopher Columbus). Chiles are delicious, dynamic, and very diverse-they have been rapidly adopted, adapted, and assimilated into numerous world cuisines, and while malleable to a degree, certain heirloom varieties are deeply tied to place and culture-but now accelerating climate change may be scrambling their terroir. Over a year-long journey, three pepper-loving gastronauts-an agroecologist, a chef, and an ethnobotanist-set out to find the real stories of America's rarest heirloom chile varieties, and learn about the changing climate from farmers and other people who live by the pepper, and who, lately, have been adapting to shifting growing conditions and weather patterns. They put a face on an issue that has been made far too abstract for our own good. Chasing Chiles is not your archetypal book about climate change, with facts and computer models delivered by a distant narrator. On the contrary, these three dedicated chileheads look and listen, sit down to eat, and get stories and recipes from on the ground-in farmers' fields, local cafes, and the desert-scrub hillsides across North America. From the Sonoran Desert to Santa Fe and St. Augustine (the two oldest cities in the U.S.), from the marshes of Avery Island in Cajun Louisiana to the thin limestone soils of the Yucatan, this book looks at how and why climate change will continue to affect our palates and our producers, and how it already has.