The Chile Chronicles: Tales of a New Mexico Harvest: Tales of a New Mexico Harvest

Chiles are an essential part of the cuisine of New Mexico, and this fascinating book tells the story of how chiles are grown in the state. Look elsewhere for recipes and suggestion for how to use them; look here for the romance and the difficulties of their cultivation. (A great place to start is The Great Chiles Rellenos Book by Janos Wilder.) Faith is an essential part of the Hispanic chile farmer's life: Padilla was told: "You become very spiritual because so much of your life depends on the God-given: the sun, the moon, the wind, the water ... Tonight, I'll pray that everything we saw [in the chile fields] today will still be here tomorrow." In an interview, Padilla said: "I made a conscious choice not to make this a cookbook. I felt the lifestyle and societal aspects needed to be documented." She details the lives of 12 farm families on the human level, and describes the history of chile horticulture and its economic importance on a macro level. Padilla contrasts northern and southern New Mexico farmers: "The farmer who tenders her isolated chile fields in the north grows mostly to feed her family... The farmer who oversees the large fields in the south grows principally to fulfill contracts with hot-sauce makers in Louisiana." This is the gritty view of making a living growing chiles. "Those who see just the trendiness and celebrity of New Mexico miss what's really beautiful about this state." "Hatch Chiles" is a label of great importance among chile lovers, so important that there is absolutely no way all of the chiles bearing the label could possibly come from the area around Hatch. In Padilla's telling, Hatch is "a tiny, desolate place with more pickup trucks and tractors than people, crime and alcoholism that follow the course of the chile crop, and entertainment that means ladies' bridge games and burgers at the Dairy Queen." New Mexico''s soil and high desert climate are excellent chile enviroments, and the state grows over 80% of the nation's chiles. But droughts, diseases, political and racial conflicts, labor problems, and severe weather all provide major hurdles to bringing in a crop. But when everything breaks right, farmers and consumers benefit from one of the best eating vegetables; this excellent book illustrates the human cost of bringing them to the table. Robert C. Ross 2010