Food

Via Ken Alexander, of FieryWorld.com and one of the Head Judges of the World Hot Sauce Awards:

“Below is a list of the winners of the inaugural World Hot Sauce Awards. The awards ceremony was held at the Lafayette, La Acadian Center, and the site of the Louisiana Hot Sauce Expo.

“The winners were selected by approximately 30 judges from across the country, including executive chefs, restaurant owners, elected officials, beauty queens, hot sauce industry experts, and enthusiasts!  The judges tasted 582 separate samples and each category had multiple judges. Everyone had a “hot” time and sweating foreheads, red faces, and sniffly noses were prevalent in the judge’s ranks! The awards are listed by division and category.

“My apologies if there are misspellings along the way, but there was limited time to proofread the list in an effort to get it out to everyone in a timely manner!!!  Congratulations are in order for everyone who submitted an entry and especially to the winners across very crowded fields of excellent spicy sauces, spices, confections, etc etc etc!!!  So without further ado, here are the lucky winners…”

Me and mustards have a sometimes peculiar relationship. Don’t get me wrong; I’m a lover of a fine, flavorful mustard. Yet I’m picky, fussy, and hard to please in a number of ways when it comes to the pungent condiment. I’m a fan of the straight, bright yellow table mustard, but only in a certain limited range of applications. I go crazy for a sweet and spicy honey mustard with incredible depth, a good deal of sweetness and an overall smoothness to taste the extremely sharp edge off.

But an ultra-bitter, nasal-y, sharp, horseradish, or a whole-grain mustard? My view on them can vary from unsavory to that of “I can’t wipe off my tongue enough after sampling it!”. So if you want me to like a mustard, it had better delivery on several different fronts or else it’s not going to please my finicky tongue.

El Diablo Hot and Spicy Mustards is a fairly new company that aims to change the game when it comes to fiery mustards. And make no mistake, El Diablo is not ashamed of the “spicy” moniker, as their marketing mentions, “flavors so powerful, so hot, so intense…not even the devil could resist”. But can their flavors – namely Mango, Smokey Chipotle, Steakhouse, Texas Chili, Jalapeno, and Habanero Hot & Spicy Mustards – fit in squarely with my particular palette? Well read on to find out if I liked these…

Currently airing on local Louisiana television are a few commercials for the Louisiana Hot Sauce Festival, which is being held at Acadian Village, Lafayette, LA on July 19th and 20th! For those of us not residing on southern Louisiana, you can watch these Cajun-flavored videos below:

Here’s an extremely clever short on making guacamole. Well, sort of. I don’t want to spoil anything, so just watch:

Here are my ratings for the product reviews on tonight’s BBQ Central Radio Show (which aired 6/17/14):

Jeaux’s Boys Cajun Tailgate BBQ Sauce
16 oz. – $7.50
http://www.jeauxsboys.com
Rating – 2/5

Chile Spot Competition BBQ Mop Sauce
13.5 oz.
http://www.chilespot.com
Rating – 4/5

Todd’s Dirt Crabby Dirt
3.25 oz – $5.00
http://www.toddsdirt.com
Rating – 3/5

Woooo-WEEEE! The 2014 Louisiana Hot Sauce Festival is a celebration of Hot Sauce and Spicy foods. A regional event for the 2015 International Hot Sauce Festival, the 2014 Festival is scheduled to held at Acadian Village, Lafayette, LA on July 19th and 20th!

The Louisiana Hot Sauce Festival’s objective is to…

Scovilla Hot Treats is a German company who have put their metaphorical hat in the ring of fire by producing numerous spicy sauces and products. Their contact at this past March’s Fiery Foods Show, Managing Director Heiko Weigelt, claimed to be making inroads with getting Scovilla’s wares available to the American public at Peppers, so perhaps very soon all you in the U.S. can purchase their sauces.

Scovilla has two major hot sauce lines. The first one is the widely varying Hot Gourmet, which contains condiments ranging from the mild jalapeno-based to ones dominated by naga jolokias. The other is marketed towards capsaicin thrill-seekers and is called Dragonfire, and all are super-hot selections.

In the coming months, I’ll be reviewing several from each product line. The first, in this review, will be Scovilla’s Hot Gourmet Wild Habanero Rough Red Habanero Hot Sauce (which is how it’s billed on the bottle)…