In The Poetics of Fire, Pulitzer prize-winning journalist and Chicano author Victor M. Valle posits the chile as a metaphor for understanding the shared cultural histories of Chicanx and Latinx peoples from preconquest Mesoamerica to twentieth-century New Mexico. Valle uses the chile as a decolonizing lens through which to analyze preconquest Mesoamerican cosmology, early European exploration, and the forced conversion of Native peoples to Catholicism as well as European and Mesoamerican perspectives on food and place. Assembling a rich collection of source material, Valle highlights the fiery fruit's overarching importance as evidenced by the ubiquity of references to the plant over several centuries in literature, art, official documents, and more to offer a new eco-aesthetic reading--a reframing of culinary history from a pluralistic, non-Western perspective.

A multi-award winner, RECIPE OF MEMORY is a unique blend of cookbook, family memoir, and social history. In an antique chest left to L.A. journalist Victor Valle by his great aunt, recipes dating back to 1888 give tips for preparing more than 50 dishessuch as Squab on a Bed of Saffron Rice. And five generations worth of family journals and old photographs offer insights into the development of Mexican American culture and cuisine. Illustrated.