Cooking & Entertaining

Chile, Clove, and Cardamom
Larger View
Buy Online Find Locally

Chile, Clove, and Cardamom: A Gastronomic Journey Into the Fragrances and Flavors of Desert Cuisines

Author Beth Dooley and Gary Paul Nabhan

Explore mouth-watering recipes from the most vibrant and diverse culinary traditions of the hottest and driest places on earth—including the aromatic dishes and arid-adapted traditions from Central Asia, the Middle East, North Africa, and the deserts shared by the US and Mexico—compiled by two James Beard Award-winning writers.

Chile, Clove, and Cardamom is a celebration of the fragrances and flavors of sun-drenched cuisines. Throughout this book, coauthors Beth Dooley and Gary Paul Nabhan reveal surprising patterns and principles among varied recipes of traditional desert cultures, bringing to life the places, dishes, and recipes that have been shaped by heat and drought and infused with bold flavors.

Gary Paul Nabhan, world-renowned ethnobotanist, desert ecologist, and literary naturalist, has written extensively about foods from the Middle East to the desert Southwest and is the winner of the 2024 James Beard Media Award for his recent book Agave Spirit. Joined by fellow James Beard Award–winner (The Sioux Chef, 2018) and food writer Beth Dooley, who has explored both Indigenous and perennial foods, the two have created a unique, stunning collection of over 90 recipes that honor the tastiness of cuisines that have influenced how all of humanity eats today.

Steeped in history and memory, Chile, Clove, and Cardamom is also a beautifully photographed, in-depth guide to the essential spice blends that will help you build your own aromatic pantry, drawing on a variety of easy-to-follow cooking methods for planning your own desert meals.
Inside, you’ll find:

  • Main Dishes: Sticky Lamb Ribs, Spicy Orange Chicken, Roast Chicken with Tarragon and Capers, Stuffed Mexican Peppers in Yogurt Walnut Sauce, and Lamb Kebabs with Moroccan Spices and Pomegranate Molasses Glaze.
  • Light Fare and Small Plates: Squash Blossom Fritters, Sonoran Flat Enchiladas, and Eggplant Fries with Desert Syrup.
  • Dips and Sauces: Sonoran Tepary Dip, Fire Roasted Eggplant Tahini Dip, Aromatic Red Pepper Sauce, and Fig and Pomegranate Jam.
  • Breads: Pocket Flat Breads, Pan de Semita, and Blue Corn Bread.
  • Soups and Stews: Tunisian Chickpea Stew, White Bean Chili, and Watermelon and Cactus Fruit Gazpacho.
  • Salads: Desert Succotash, Za’atar-Roasted Cauliflower, and Tangerine and Radish Salad.
  • Drinks and Desserts: Pineapple Sotol Margarita, Canary Islands Pastries, and Phyllo Nut Pinwheels.

As hotter and drier conditions become more familiar to people beyond the places where these Indigenous and Nomadic cultural cuisines originated, these water-conserving dishes and energy-saving techniques become timely for many of us. Each recipe, in turn, introduces us to the gastronomic legacies that connect these cuisines, offering tips for understanding and sourcing high-quality, delicious ingredients—and how to use them—in a changing world.

“If all the world’s most delicious foods had a reunion, this would be their family album.”—Lawrence Downes, writer; former member of the New York Times editorial board

About The Author

Beth Dooley has written several award-winning cookbooks. Her book The Perennial Kitchen offered “simple recipes for a healthy future” in the face of climate change, and her book The Sioux Chef’s Indigenous Kitchen, coauthored with Sean Sherman, was recognized as the Best American Cookbook in 2018 by the James Beard Foundation. She is regarded as a beloved weekly columnist of food and travel for the Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune, and she regularly appears on Minnesota Public Radio.

Gary Paul Nabhan is an internationally celebrated nature writer, food and farming activist, and proponent of conserving the links between biodiversity and cultural diversity. He holds the W.K. Kellogg Endowed Chair in Sustainable Food Systems at the University of Arizona Southwest Center, where he works with students, faculty, and non-profits to build a more just, nutritious, sustainable, and climate-resilient foodshed spanning the US/Mexico border. He’s also the author of numerous books, including Growing Food in a Hotter, Drier Land, Renewing America’s Food Traditions, and Chasing Chiles. He lives in southern Arizona.

  • Publish Date: October 31, 2024
  • Format: eBook
  • Category: Cooking - Regional & Cultural - American - Southwestern States
  • Publisher: Chelsea Green
  • Pages: 208
  • US Price: $25.99
  • CDN Price: $47.50
  • ISBN: 978-1-64502-246-6
Buy Online Find Locally
Back To Top

Reviews

"Culinary history, science, and ingredient notes enrich the reading, but the real joy of this book rests in the cooking. The recipes are friendly, concise, and doable."—Civil Eats

“Drought-tolerant? Try drought-embracing, drought-loving, drought-grateful. Thank you, sumac and chipotles, turmeric and cloves. Thank you, camels and caravans. And thank you, Beth Dooley and Gary Paul Nabhan, for this spicy, fragrant, mind-expanding book that reveals what we all owe to migrants from the hot and dry places of this world.”—Lawrence Downes, writer; former member of the New York Times editorial board

“As a somewhat smell-blind person, holy mole, I’m grateful for this book! It’s widened my ability to enjoy the many wondrous aromas and tastes of desert cuisines. Looking beyond my own nose, I can see that, though disguised as a cookbook, this book really offers a broader recipe for eating and living well as our planet becomes hotter and drier. By sharing sensuous pleasures of food from across Earth’s more arid reaches, our inimitable guides ‘Brother Coyote’ Gary Paul Nabhan and Beth Dooley invite us to join in their delicious mission: Let’s savor the flavors and partners involved in the meaning-making meals that root us in our places and bridge us into global community.”—Keefe Keeley, coeditor, The Driftless Reader; executive director, the Savanna Institute

“Celebrated ethnobotanist Gary Paul Nabhan makes a bold argument for why arid lands produce the world’s most aromatic foodstuffs we humans crave and trade. Cookbook author extraordinaire Beth Dooley’s irresistible recipes prove each of his succulent points. By showing how fragrant and delectable life on a warming world can be, this book fills your mind and belly and lifts your heart.”—Alan Weisman, author of The World Without Us and Gaviotas

“Follow the new spice roads as climate change forces some of the world’s most pungent and floral spices and herbs into new latitudes. This sumptuous, optimistic journey reveals how to combine and cook with ancient flavors in both time-honored and entirely new, delicious recipes.”—Janos Wilder, James Beard Award–winning chef

“If you’ve ever traveled in desert lands, you know that the foods take on an almost hypnotic intensity. Chile, Clove, and Cardamom explains why and shows you how to bring that intensity into your own kitchen. By celebrating the commonalities and innovations of the planet’s arid cuisines in these gorgeous recipes, Dooley and Nabhan have given us a manual for living well in a sun-kissed world.”—Rowan Jacobsen, author of Wild Chocolate

“When two of my all-time favorite food writers find common ground, I know I am going to be both thrilled and surprised. Beth Dooley and Gary Paul Nabhan did more—they have created a whole new perspective on how we face the hotter, drier future we’re creating on this planet. This remarkable new book Chile, Clove, and Cardamom takes you inside the world of intense flavors and aromas you cannot imagine while bringing you foursquare into considering how our food sources must and will shift as we adapt and reinvent.”—Mark Ritchie, chair, Minnesota USA Expo 2031 Steering Committee

“In Chile, Clove, and Cardamom, Beth Dooley and Gary Paul Nabhan offer an exploration of culinary traditions from some of the world’s most arid regions. As someone presently delving into the unique flavors and techniques of these diverse cuisines, I find this work to be an invaluable resource. It beautifully captures the essence of these regions, providing both valuable inspiration and deep appreciation for their culinary heritage—a cookbook I will cherish.”—Barbara Massaad, chef and TV host; author of Soup for Syria

“This book is an important culmination of culinary and ethnographic research that tells a story of desert regions through the spices and plants that define regional cuisines. Chile, Clove, and Cardamom is a guidebook for the future as our climate gets hotter and drier.”—Elizabeth Johnson, chef and owner, Pharm Table

“In this book, the authors are your personal sommeliers of fragrances, flavors, and terroirs of desert cuisines shaped by heat and aridity. Dooley and Nabhan, both recipients of James Beard Awards for their food writing, are also eloquent guides for a gastronomic tour of what they call Planet Desert. Along the way, they explain the science of why foods become more interesting and intense when they struggle in hot, dry climates. They also describe the shared patterns of desert food traditions and trace the routes of dishes that historically moved from their homelands to other desert regions. The thoughtfully selected recipes shared in the second half of the book will inspire home cooks to take their own culinary journeys with a new appreciation for cuisines already adapted to climate change. Use this book to taste the future!”—Jonathan Mabry, director of community engagement, College of Social and Behavioral Studies, University of Arizona

Author Bookshelf: Beth Dooley, Gary Paul Nabhan

Chile, Clove and Cardamom