Review by Jeanne Englert
Food – December 2000 – Colorado Central Magazine
Totally Chile Pepper Cookbook
by Helene Siegel and Karen Gillingham
Published by Celestial Arts
ISBN 0-89087-724-6
YO TENGO HAMBRE. ¿Que hay para la comer? There are both big winner and loser recipes in the Totally Chile Pepper Cookbook. The salmon with citrus habanero salsa is what restaurant critics would call a “to-die-for.” The grilled jalapeño flank steak is delicioso.
On the other hand, there’s “sangrita ice,” which the cookbook writers describe as a nice between-course palate-tingler or dessert. Tomatoes, jalapeños, orange and lime juice, blended with tequila, then poured into ice cube trays and frozen. Even the one-third cup of tequila couldn’t save that one. Down the drain.
Still, this little cookbook is worth its equally small price, only $4.95. It’s a good stocking stuffer if only for what I learned about chiles. For example, Hungarian scientist Albert Szent Gyögri was awarded a Nobel prize in 1937 for his discovery that chiles are loaded with vitamin C, and are incomparable for clearing sinuses and cleansing pores, as any of us who need to get our “chile fix” knows. Capsaicine, in its chemical form of guaifenesin, is a major ingredient in expectorants like Vicks 44, Sudafed, and Robitussin.
Another fascinating nugget you can glean from this little cookbook: “The state of Texas, practically a country, is presently pursuing jalapeño farming, since farmers have learned it is second in profitability only to marijuana.” (Now there’s some interesting grist for your columnar mill, Ed Quillen.)
This cookbook also gives instruction in how to roast chiles and how a poblano may be called a pasilla, depending on which state or supermarket you go into. Go by the shape, not the name, is the advice. While the book does explain the Scoville unit, how chiles are rated — a $32,000 question in the TV show “Who wants to be a Millionaire” — and how endomorphins give us a chile “high,” the authors forgot to tell us that you need to wear gloves in preparing those little orange, pumpkin-shaped habaneros.
Esta es un libro de recetas muy agradable. Feliz Navidad. — Jeanne Englert
