Book Review: The Devil's Dinner

The Devil's Dinner: A Gastronomic and Cultural History of Chili Peppers
Stuart Walton
History, food

What irritated me most about The Devil's Dinner was the organization. The chapters are arranged without any real narrative flow, information is sometimes repeated, and the whole thing comes off as something of a muddle. Nor did I think that the research that went into the book was especially deep or complete; Walton seems to have relied heavily on a small number of interviews and a lot of second-hand reportage.

That said, there's some interesting stuff in here. The "burning" sensation of chili, for example, really does activate some of the same neural pathways as actual burning. Also, there's a real thing out there called Male Idiot Theory, which has been used to explain chili-eating contests. I'll buy it.

Rather surprisingly, there's no recipe section.

Overall verdict: mildly interesting. But with a title and topic like this, "mild" shouldn't be the descriptor! I'd pay good money to see John McPhee do for the chili pepper what he did for Oranges, for example.

Book Review: Butter

Butter: A Rich History
Elaine Khosrova
Food, science, history

Ah, the now-classic single-noun-titled biography of a substance. We already own Salt and The Potato. Getting this one felt kind of inevitable.

Butter's not bad. It's somewhat scattershot in its approach, touching on its subtopics--buttermaking, history, nutrition, and so forth--in no very particular order. I think Khosrova would have been wiser to have started with, at minimum, a definition of terms. No doubt in her foodie bubble everyone is born knowing the exact distinctions among butter, butterfat, milk solids, cream, whey, and so forth, but I wasn't. On the other hand, the vigorous defense of butter's healthiness was (if nothing else) heartening.

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If you're ever in Cork, Ireland, don't miss the Butter Museum. Really.