Chile Chronicles Book

The Chile Chronicles unfolds the rich history and contemporary culture of chile in New Mexico, the largest producer of chile in the United States. The book traces chile from its South American origins to its development as an agricultural mainstay in New Mexico to its modern incarnation as the basis for a high-tech chile science. In New Mexico, chile is about pungency, taste, texture, and color, but more than anything else, chile is about culture. The crop has been cultivated in the narrow river valleys of New Mexico since the Spanish conquest, and as the author Stanley Crawford writes in the foreword, it still serves as an anchor for traditional Hispanic culture in the state. The chile-growers portrayed in The Chile Chronicles are connected by their love of the earth and their tenacity in growing this temperamental crop. They labor in good harvest and poor, up markets and down, as much for the sake of tradition as for profit or taste. New Mexicos chile culture has made its way into the mainstream, taking hold among many sophisticated buyers who eat the fiery vegetable in everything from grocery store salsa to haute cuisine. Now, the Chile Chronicles make reading about chile as delightful as eating it.