Clifford A. Wright (1)

I'll confess: I collect cookbooks so I can read them. Do I cook from them? Occasionally. Mostly, however, I read them, flip about looking at pictures, study ingredient lists to see what flavors are being combined. I don't have the patience to precisely follow someone else's directions, but I'll use them as jumping off points for improvisations using what I have around the house. (I never seem to have all the ingredients any recipe calls for.)

One of the items in our pantry right now is a show more collection of dried chilies that we bought on a whim when visiting a produce stand with a broader-then-usual range of foods for sale. So Cooking with Chilies is a perfect book for me. First off—I can identify all those chilies and get some sense of their heat. Then, I can pick one kind of chili, read through every recipe using it, and start playing with what I have at home.

The author provides a wealth of information about chili types, global cuisines that involve chilies, and stories of his own experiences eating chilies. If you're the kind of cook who uses recipes as suggestions, rather than orders, you'll love this book. And if you do follow directions, Cooking with Chilies will give you a great introduction to recipes that will push your current practice.

I received a free electronic review copy of this title from the publisher via EdelweissPlus; the opinions are my own. show less

Cooking With Chilies by Clifford Wright is a 2022 Harvard Common Press publication.

I love spicy food! I grew up with spices and rich flavors, then moved to an area with a different blend of spices and I love it all- but as much as I enjoy a little heat in my dishes, my DH believes every dish is supposed to be flavored with hot spices... 😁😁🌶️🌶️

Suffice it to say, we have some knowledge of local peppers and chilies, and we grow our own peppers, and make our own sauces, when we show more can. That said, there are many types of chilies I have never had the opportunity to try, which is why I picked this book up. I wanted to try new recipes using chilies I am familiar with, but also wanted to learn about other types of chilies, their heat levels, and how to cook with them.

This is another cookbook that is more than just a recipe book. The author gives the reader a history of the chilies, where they originate, how easy or hard it may be to locate them, how to work around hard to find ingredients, along with the recipes and instructions.

It is an interesting book- with some scrumptious recipes, and I feel like I learned something more about cultures and history and sometimes just interesting food facts. My DH, as I have explained before, is the real cook in the family and chilies are a favorite subject of his- so we both enjoyed looking at this cookbook.

As to the organization, it’s separated by the usual categories beginning with soups, then meats- beef, pork, chicken and seafood. Next comes vegetables, noodles and rice. Nice color photographs included.
All the recipes look incredible- some of them more complicated than others, and the author is upfront about the difficulty is finding some ingredients in all markets. Still, there are suggestions for substitutions and these days we should all be accustomed to having to do make a few adjustments.

Overall, an interesting, informative and useful cookbook!

4 stars

* I am fond of cayenne, (a little dab will do, though), and of course we use lots of Serrano and Jalapenos around here and over the years I have acquired a moderate tolerance to some hot peppers- but, word of warning- if you ever cross paths with Habanero peppers or sauces or dishes they are added to- you might want to just walk away- tolerance or no- as even in very, very, minute portions it is more than most people can take- trust me, I learned that the hard way.... show less

I wish I would have read the reviews more closely. I was looking for something new in easy to make, crowd pleasing comfort food. There are some good recipes in this book, but it is not for the busy mom looking to pop something into the oven between the carpool and weeding the garden. This is for the more uppity 'have someone else pick up the kids so we can spend all day grating fresh nutmeg' crowd.
The kind of people who have the time to cultivate all the fresh organic ingredients and live show more somewhere with gourmet markets instead of mega-mart grocery stores don't eat casseroles.
This is not your mom's church potluck kind of casserole. But if you can afford the time to cook like Martha Stewart and have a family that will actually eat rutabegga pudding, this may be the book for you. show less

I have rated this a bit higher than others, due to the valuable inclusion of culinary history and the Arab influences in the island--which reach far beyond food and cooking into place names, vocabulary, art and architecture. For a general history of Sicilian food and foodways, though, I always prefer and refer Mary Taylor Simeti's "Pomp and circumstance : twenty-five centuries of Sicilian food"

This is the main reason that I bought this particular book, as I already have several other show more Sicilian cookbooks. For someone who (albeit in America) was raised in a predominantly Sicilian-culture household, the recipes themselves are fairly pedestrian, although any number of them will seem exotic to others: tuna and raisins in a sweet-sour sauce any one? show less