Rec'd reading: Chasing Chiles

The book Chasing Chiles is not merely a tome dedicated to exploring climate change and it’s impacts on agriculture, though it does this well, it is a celebration of life.  By focusing in on the stories of one food, chile peppers, the three authors were able to dig deeply into the complex ways in which all food touches our lives, providing readers (well this reader at least) with enough sustenance to care deeply about the fate of chiles specifically and food, land, and culture, in general through learning about the fragility and import of biodiversity in our food system. I find myself left with not just a taste for more chile peppers, but with a sense of concern, and conversely, a hope for their future.

Written by three active figures in the good food movement—chef and Slow Food USA board member Kurt Michael Friese; author, conservationist, ethnobotanist, father of Renewing America’s Food Traditions Alliance, and local food hero Gary Paul Nabhan; and my friend and fellow Slow Food Biodiversity committee member the agroecologist Kraig Kraft—this work brings together the insights of their varied expertise to explore the vast ramifications of climate change on food.

The three gastronauts take us from Sonora and its Chiltepines, to Florida and its Datils, to the Yucatan and its Habaneros, to the Gulf Coast and its Tabascos, to New Mexico and its diverse Native Chiles, to Maryland and the history of Fish peppers, and to Wisconsin and Southern Illinois and Beaver Dams, telling the stories of peppers and the amazing people dedicated to keeping them available. They weave in language, history, music, art, politics, tragedies, and recipes along the way. 

Threats to biodiversity are in the multitude.  Loss of small farms, farmers, and farmland, environmental degradation, industrialization of agriculture and our food system, and the decreasing understanding humans have of how land, food, culture, and health are tied together have been major players in loss of biodiversity for decades, but climate change may be throwing a whole host of new threats into play.  In Chasing Chiles we learn about how temperature changes, floods, drought, storm damage, pestilence from shifting weather patterns seem to be increasing perils.  While each locale will respond differently to climate change, Friese, Nahban, and Kraft remind us that to create resilience in our food system (i.e. to ensure food remains available to make it onto our plates) we must increase biodiversity among all food crops to provide a buffer. As all locales will respond differently to shifting weather patterns, so too will each varietal respond differently to these shifts.

I would be remiss in not mentioning certain personal and professional affinities for this subject matter.  For I found it deeply gratifying to experience the synchronicity of burning my tongue on a soup flavored with Chiltepines found on a recent trip to Tucson and visit to Native Seeds as I sat down to begin reading and then to finish the book as I awaited the appearance of dozens of Beaver Dam pepper seedling I started to grow out here in the state they’ve been home to for nearly a hundred years.  And as a dietitian, I must note the clear connection between biodiversity and health: as we’ve moved away from diverse diets towards increasingly refined, industrialized, mono-crop diets our health has suffered. By restoring biodiversity to our gardens, fields, and wild places we can restore our health.  This book ends hopefully with some meaningful principles to eat and grow food to counter climate change.

Chasing Chiles is one hot, wild ride. And one worth taking.