The Childucken Experiment

Dave DeWitt In the Kitchen with Chile Peppers Leave a Comment

Text and Photos by Harald Zoschke Another one from my new & exciting series “Harald grills everything but his Mom.” You may (or may not) have heard of Turducken. That’s a somewhat unusual dish from the Southern U.S., consisting of a chicken stuffed into a duck, which is in turn stuffed into a turkey. Hence the name, constructed from TURkey, …

Africa: A Continent of Chiles

Dave DeWitt Africa Leave a Comment

By Dave DeWitt An Excerpt from Precious Cargo: How Foods From the Americas Changed the World(Counterpoint Press, 2014). Available here. The high priest of African chiles was Laurens van der Post, the South African author who wrote, “The man who has become hooked on piri-piri hungers for his favorite dish like a junkie for heroin, because the person who has …

Celebration for Pete Outside the Cantina

The Grains of Paradise

Dave DeWitt Humor Leave a Comment

By James Street Editor’s Note: This short story about a chile-eating contest in Tabasco, Mexico, was first published in The Saturday Evening Post on May 14, 1955. The author makes so many errors about chile peppers, black pepper, and melegueta pepper that it’s humorous. How many errors can you spot? I do not like stories that suggest one thing and …

Ristras for Sale, Old Town c. 1951

Albuquerque’s Food History is All About Chiles

Dave DeWitt U.S.A. Leave a Comment

By Dave DeWitt Above: Ristras for Sale, Old Town c. 1951 With the green chile harvest in full swing in the southern part of the state, it’s time to take a look at how chile peppers have influenced the cuisine of the Duke City. Even before Fabian Garcia, a researcher at what is now New Mexico State University, began to …

Wilbur Scoville as a Young Man

Wilbur Scoville and the Organoleptic Test Centennial

Dave DeWitt Chile History Leave a Comment

By Dave DeWitt [Author’s Note: The year 2012 marks the Centennial Anniversary of the Scoville Organoleptic Test, so I decided to apply all my food history online research skills that I’ve honed over the past five years to create what is the first definitive—however brief—biographical essay on Scoville. Fortunately, the combination of Google Books, Google Scholar, and other online resources …