Food

I’ve gotten e-mails, as well as Twitter and Facebook messages from people wondering what the best sauces and gifts to give to heat freaks are. First of all, I would urge everyone to act quickly! It’s only days before the various shipping deadlines occur, so remember time is of the essence.

I’ve previously compiled a short list of great multi-bottle hot sauce packages for the Hot Sauce Weekly podcast here. Be sure to take a listen to the podcast AND read that particular episode’s show notes get get the full details.

Also, if you would like to give the chile pepper lover or hot sauce fanatic in your life a killer t-shirt, check out the selection Chilehead Tees.

I present to you a couple of the most delectable sugary treats ever to have had any form of chile applied or added to it: Sunny Gully Farms Fire Corn and Sunny Gully Farms Chocolate Fire Corn. If you don’t live around the Scottville, Michigan area and the name Sunny Gully isn’t ringing a bell, you might know the owners, Bob and Sue Shuman as Mr. & Mrs. Hobbyfarmer from the last dozen or so Open Fields chile pepper festivals in Indiana. As you might have guessed, Bob has close ties to the Midwest spicy foods industry – he includes both Jim Campbell and CaJohn Hard as longtime friends – and sells a number of sauces, glazes and other food offerings under the Sunny Gully name to local farmers markets and stores. If you’ve attended Open Fields, you have probably sampled some freebies generously he generously handed out.

I don’t think I’ve really been nuts (no pun intended) about caramel corn of any kind since I was a young lad, when I’d crunch and munch (pun intended that time) on Cracker Jacks; and even then I’d be more interested in the cheapo “prize” at the bottom of the box than the food contents. Fire Corn blows away all the mass-produced brands of caramel corn and is without a doubt the best snack food of its kind I’ve ever eaten…

Here’s a foursome of uncommon sauces from our friends up North. Peppermaster is a Quebec, Canada outfit run by Greg and Tina Brooks and the couple has been steadily making their company’s presence known to American over the past few years with their massive lineup of unique sauces and products. The ones I’m reviewing today – Peppermaster Junior Chili Chocolate, Red Savina Mango, Nirvana Naga and Sweet Goatpepper Chili Sauce – are very representative of Peppermaster’s highly diverse offerings. I’m pleased to say that every single one is the polar opposite of run of the mill. If you’ve grown weary of copycat or “me too” sauces, give Peppermaster a try…

2010 SCOVIE AWARDS RECOGNIZES PALM BEACH GARDENS COMPANY FOR PRODUCT EXCELLENCE

When the results of the 2010 Scovie Awards, the world’s leading recognition for hot and spicy products, were announced, Chef Wayne Howey of Tropical Island Gourmet was excited to get the call from the competition organizers. Palm Beach Gardens-based Tropical Island Gourmet Co., which distributes a wide assortment of bottled sauces and Spice Blends, has received a First Place 2010 Scovie Award. In the industry’s most rigorous blind tastings, a panel of the country’s top culinary experts sampled hundreds of the world’s most lauded gourmet foods, and the top scoring products each won a coveted Scovie banner.

First Place in the Medium Hot Sauce category was awarded to Tropical Island Gourmet’s top selling “Fire Ant Juice” which is manufactured locally by Sauce Crafters (www.saucecrafters.com) in Riviera Beach Fl. Over 600 products from around the world competed for top honors. The Scovie Awards were created by Dave DeWitt, the nation’s leading author on fiery cuisine and founder of the National Fiery Foods & Barbecue Show. The awards are…

It’s kind of cool to see the growing awareness of the ghost chili (AKA as the naga/bhut jolokia), the world’s hottest chile pepper, in the mainstream consciousness. One of the strangest ways has to be it’s presence in the Facebook app Farmville. My wife had come across the option in the program (I don’t play it myself) where you can choose what items to plant and grow on your virtual farm, and lo and behold here were these spicy little beauties. My better half had not yet reached a high enough level to purchase and raise the fiery crops, but it was interesting nonetheless to see them in the game. I’m guessing one or more of the developers of the app is a chilehead.

There are also regular bell peppers and generic chile peppers available as crops as well.

According to the latest numbers, Farmville has 69 million active users and counting. Yipes. That’s a lot of people this dangerously hot ghost chile pepper will be exposed to.

It’s kind of cool to see the growing awareness of the ghost chili (AKA as the naga/bhut jolokia), the world’s hottest chile pepper, in the mainstream consciousness. One of the strangest ways has to be it’s presence in the Facebook app Farmville. My wife had come across the option in the program (I don’t play it myself) where you can choose what items to plant and grow on your virtual farm, and lo and behold here were these spicy little beauties. My better half had not yet reached a high enough level to purchase and raise the fiery crops, but it was interesting nonetheless to see them in the game. I’m guessing one or more of the developers of the app is a chilehead.

There are also regular bell peppers and generic chile peppers available as crops as well.

According to the latest numbers, Farmville has 69 million active users and counting. Yipes. That’s a lot of people this dangerously hot ghost chile pepper will be exposed to.

I never watch SyFy’s Ghost Hunters, but here’s a short little aside after the hosts stumple upon some Dave’s Temporary Insanity Sauce (a sauce that has only about 1/4 the heat of the classic Dave’s Insanity Sauce):

Dave’s Insanity Sauce has the notoriety of not only once being the hottest sauce in the world in the 1990s, but it’s probably currently the most famous specialty hot sauce known by non-chileheads. Folks who aren’t heat freaks may be able to rattle off three or four “supermarket” pepper sauces like Frank’s, Tapatio or Tabasco, but when you press them about giving an example of a super-hot condiment, chances are they’ll name Dave’s Insanity more often than any other sauce.

It’s this distinction and mystique about Insanity Sauce that’s kept Dave near or at the top of the fiery foods game for over 15 years. But Dave’s Gourmet is far more than just their flagship product; Hirschkop’s company offers many other fine pepper sauces, plus pasta sauces, drink mixes, condiments, spicy snacks and more.

I was recently given the chance to speak with Dave to ask him a few questions. One might have expected a wild, gregarious man who once regularly wore a straightjacket to food shows and on the cover of his cookbook, Crazy from the Heat. Instead, Dave proved to be a genial, mild-mannered fellow. After conversing with him, I was given the impression that Dave would rather focus on making his company a diverse brand of gourmet food products (“more of a Trader Joe’s or Paul Newman’s” in his words) than just being makers of scorchingly hot products, something that would differentiate himself from peers such as Blair’s of CaJohn’s.

There is a gradual introduction of hot and spicy foods in industry segments such as fast food restaurants and snack chips. You can get “spicy” chicken sandwiches, buffalo and habanero flavors, and even newer franchises (Chipotle and Qdoba, to name a couple) that cater a bit more to flavor-adventurous crowds.

Do you think this is a positive thing or a negative thing? You may think it’s good, because it slowly acclimates society to being more open to spicier and hotter flavors. Or you may think it’s bad, because the heat level in these foods may seem “watered down” to chileheads, and you may believe it’s doing a great disservice to those who love truly spicy foods. What do you think?

Just in time for Christmas… Have you ever wondered what it would be like to make your own hot sauce? Well, here’s an interesting little kit that attempts to get you started. The Some Like It Hot! Make Your Own Hot Sauce Kit contains instructions with a glossary and tips, three bottles with restrictor tips and caps, and six bags of spice (allspice, black cumin, curry powder, achiote, Jamaican jerk spice and ginger) to create different variations of the spicy stuff. All you add is your own chile peppers, vinegar, salt, and love. The entire package will run you $19.95 plus shipping and is available at
http://scientificsonline.com/product.asp?pn=3097700&bhcd2=1259719866M.

Here’s a quick update to the review of Danny Cash’s Mean Streak Habanero Mango Hot Sauce I wrote just a few weeks ago. Danny had told me that he recently re-formulated the recipes to all of his hot sauces and had sent me a bottle of Mean Streak to try since the re-tweaking. Messing around with a great sauce like Mean Streak is no casual thing. It had better be good.

I opened up the bottle of the new stuff and immediately noticed the different after drawing a whiff. Gone is the strong vinegar aroma and in its place is a much more mellow fruity sensation. I splashed a dash of sauce on my palm to taste it, and the distinction between old and new was confirmed. Mean Streak, as I described it previously, is no longer in “Louisiana hot sauce” territory that is flavored by heavy vinegar and salt. The newer formula is a sweeter blend, with the taste of mangos taking center stage. So much is the dominant fruity flavor that it’s almost like a mango/orange juice fusion accented by fresh habanero peppers…

John “CaJohn” Hard was one of my “musts” when I made my first mental list of who to interview for my website’s FireTalkers section. He’s a guy who I considered to be one of today’s foremost purveyors of heat, yet someone whom I didn’t see as the prime interview focus in material that originated in the chilehead world. Sure, CaJohn’s Fiery Foods has enjoyed enough attention from the hot sauce blogs to fill a battleship, in the form of product reviews, trade show coverage, and being featured in other chilehead events and discussions. CaJohn relishes interaction with fiery foods fans and they’ve respectfully returned the favor in spades. But it’s been a few years (an eternity in internet time) since CaJohn has had a proper interview or profile done on him and his company from online chilehead community.

What can I say about CaJohn’s Fiery Foods that most hardcore heat freaks don’t already know about? In the decade-plus time that the Columbus, Ohio company has existed, it has become the winning-est hot sauce manufacturer in America, racking up over 350 prestigious awards, which include dozens of Golden Chiles and Scovies. They have a dizzying array of products that are awesomely delicious (I haven’t tasted a weak one yet) and aren’t afraid to push the envelope in terms of both heat and flavor. Inside of Columbus’ North Market, a foodie paradise, CaJohn’s owns both a small hot sauce store and an eatery that serves chili, enchiladas, spicy smoked sausage and nachos. CaJohn and his employees are a fixture at hot sauces shows and open up their own business to chileheads every year after the Weekend of Fire event for an open house and barbecue. CaJohn and his wife Sue participate in an annual congregation of pepper fans (known as the “Fire Mountain Krewe”) at his own cabins in Gatlinburg, Tennessee for a weekend of fun and spicy eating.

CaJohn (pronounced “Kay-John”, NOT “Kuh-John” or “California John”) is a man instantly recognizable with his trademark trimmed Santa Claus beard and pepper print shirts. What’s also trademark of him is his enthusiasm about the spicy foods and his willingness to help out both fellow sauce makers and his fans. He was gracious enough to let me ask him a few questions on him and his business…