The Chile Pepper Encyclopedia: Everything You'll Ever Need To Know About Hot Peppers, With More Than 100 Recipes

In addition to entries on chile species, culture, terminology, and agriculture, the encyclopedia includes more than one hundred fiery recipes like Madras Fried Chile Fritters from India and Jamaican Jerk Chicken Wings are sure to please any hot-and-spicy food lover. Black and white drawings and photographs, charts, and graphs appear throughout, and an eight page insert includes color photographs of dozens of varieties of chiles, invaluable for identification. The Chile Pepper Encyclopedia is an indispensable sourcebook for chile aficionados, gardeners, cooks, and anyone else who has a burning interest in fiery foods.

The recipes can of course be tweaked so they're not as hot. But if you really don't like spicy food, you're looking at the wrong category of cookbook!


Father's Day Gift   July 6, 2001
 2 out of 9 found this review helpful

This book was the perfect Father's Day gift! It is filled with great recipes and secrets to successful pepper-planting!!

Thanks for the great gift idea!


Spicy Hot!   October 17, 2001
This is a gem from Dave Dewitt the King of ALL Peppers. He knows his stuff about all there is to know about chiles, from mild to the 'insanity' peppers! It goes into great detail about the history of peppers to how to grow them. The book's layout is in an A-Z easy to find guide. The index is very good as well so you can find what you're after. I have made a scrumptious HOT HOT beef curry from this book, just to give you something to make your mouth water. A good addition to your chile book collection or library!


Worth a read.....   September 20, 2005
 2 out of 5 found this review helpful

This is truly an encyclopedia, giving more detail and history than most folks would ever want to know about the chili pepper. For the chili-head, though, it is must have knowledge. I enjoyed it.


Slightly exaggerated claim.....   July 4, 2004
 28 out of 28 found this review helpful

The CHILE PEPPER ENCYCLOPEDIA by Dave DeWitt, should be an encyclopedia, right? I picture an encyclopedia about peppers as a comprehensive book with many sections each illustrated with a colorful photo of the subject. That is not the case with this book, however. DeWitt's encyclopedia is yet another cookbook. He included many recipes which he has organized origin not by dish, or type of pepper.

For example, "A" is for Africa and African dishes such as "South African Hot Lamb Curry" which include American peppers and probably originated with natives from India using British lamb. "A" contains a section on `Aji' peppers (of interest to me), but I did not find the Aji pepper I grow in my garden and want to know more about (Aji Colorado). From Africa, we move onto Amazonia, which digresses into African slaves and Catholic saints.

DeWitt is obviously quite knowledgeable about peppers. I just wish his editors could help him get organized. And, pictures of Chinese peasants sorting peppers is interesting, but please add color photos of the peppers or don't call this an encyclopedia about peppers.