from the Nahuatl: chīlli /ˈt͡ʃiːlːi/

September 6, 2014 10:38 AM

I love chili peppers. I love eating them and I love cooking them and I love growing them. I love everything about them. Please point me to the best writing &/or media you know of that concern chili peppers.

For example:

The Pepper Trail: History & Recipes from Around the World by Jean Andrews.

The Gut-Wrenching Science Behind the World’s Hottest Peppers by Mary Roach

Precolumbian use of chili peppers in the Valley of Oaxaca, Mexico by Linda Perry and Kent V. Flannery

Books, articles, poems, songs, jokes, scientific research, documentaries, gardening advice, memoirs, personally tested recipes, movie/TV scenes, folklore, etcetera - I'm interested in it all*.

*Note: absolutely no interest in videos of silly people eating hot peppers and suffering intense agony &/or anything related to the Red Hot Chili Peppers, despite the fact that I like some of their songs.

posted by jammy to Food & Drink (7 answers total)

"Who Made That Tabasco Sauce?" (from the New York Times Magazine)
posted by alex1965 at 10:44 AM on September 6, 2014

If you don't already know about it, you should check out the Chile Pepper Institute at New Mexico State University.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 10:51 AM on September 6, 2014

"Chiles' Global Warming," from the March.April 2014 issue of Saudi Aramco World.
posted by Corvid at 10:52 AM on September 6, 2014

I think it's mandatory to link to this comment about the apocalypse pepper.
posted by moonmilk at 10:52 AM on September 6, 2014

Check On Food and Cooking out from the library and hit the index looking for relevant pages. Lots and lots of science behind how they developed and why our bodies react like they do.
posted by Juliet Banana at 10:53 AM on September 6, 2014

Poem for you: Hot by Craig Arnold
posted by carrioncomfort at 12:38 PM on September 6, 2014

I enjoyed "Fire-eaters - The search for the hottest chili," by Lauren Collins in the New Yorker.
posted by fussbudget at 4:03 PM on September 6, 2014