The infant city called The Clearing was a bald patch amid a stuttering wood. The Clearing was no booming metropolis; no destination for gastrotourists; no career-changer for ardent chefs -- just awkward, palsied steps toward Victorian gentility. In the decades before the remaining trees were scraped from the landscape, Portland's wood was still a verdant breadbasket, overflowing with huckleberries and chanterelles, venison leaping on cloven hoof. Today, Portland is seen as a quaint village populated by trust fund wunderkinds who run food carts each serving something more precious than the...

There are some of us who can't even stand to look at them--and others who can't live without them: chillies have been searing tongues and watering eyes for centuries in innumerable global cuisines. In this book, Heather Arndt Anderson explores the many ways nature has attempted to take the roofs of our mouths off--from the deceptively vegetal-looking jalapeno to the fire-red ghost pepper--and the many ways we have gleefully risen to the challenge.
Anderson tells the story of the spicy berry's rise to prominence, showing that it was cultivated and venerated by the ancient people of...