 | 
Go Back To Previous Page
Some Like It Hot!
By Elaine Johnson, Sunset Magazine
The names hook you first. Ring of Fire. Devil Drops. Dan T's Inferno. Then you see the visuals: vampires, demons, scenes of pain. Yes, inside these bottles lurks a monster, a fiery beast with the power to scorch your tongue off. If the thought of hot sauces makes you run to the store, not the faucet, joint the club. These liquid infernos are crowding grocery aisles, spawning Web sites on the Internet, and fueling the growth of stores like Hot Hot Hot in Pasadena, a self-described head shop for heat seekers. A top seller at Hot Hot Hot and other stores is Dave's Insanity Sauce, an off-the-scale sauce made with the same extract used in pepper spray. Which prompts the question: Is it lunacy that attracts us to hot sauces?
Perhaps not lunacy, but at least a little thrill-seeking and a chance to prove just how hot you can take it.
Veterans of the hot sauce world such as Tabasco and Pickapeppa have been grocery store staples for generations, enjoyed for their moderate heat and predictability. What's new are the boutique players, which are entering the market by the hundreds'. Sheer zaniness seems to drive their sales - zany ingredients like sweet potatoes and bananas, zany packaging, zany personnel, and zany heat levels.
Hot sauces from the new "microbreweries" sport some of the most creative packaging in the food industry. "Our sauces arouse more than tastebuds!" is the motto of PepperTown USA in Van Nuys, California, maker of Bad Girls in Heat, Fifi's Nasty Little Secret, and Kitten's Big Banana, all with pinup-style graphics.
Having a crazy character at the company helm doesn't hurt sales, either. Dave Hirschkop, a fresh-faced 29-year-old San Francisco resident and "spicemeister" of Dave's Gourmet, may be the most legendary hot sauce guru. He shows up at trade shows in a straitjacket. Hirschkop was the first to create a hot sauce from a concentrate of capsaicin, the most common of the compounds that give chilies their bite. The idea was born five years ago, when he was running a burrito restaurant.
"Basically, I have a sick mind. We were open till late, and drunks would come in and be really obnoxious. I thought, how can I get rid of them? I started thinking about what makes chilies hot, and came up with this really hot sauce that I would put in their order. For most people, the amount on a tip of a pencil is enough to season a whole pot of food."
Personalities aside, the business of hot sauces still boils down to the chilies. Hot sauce microbreweries have convinced buyers that hotter is better (though there's no industry wide heat measurement for hot sauces) and that a sauce made from habanero chilies is the best. "When habaneros first became mainstream, we had one or two habanero sauces. Now we have 80 or 90," says Tim Eidson, co-owner of Mo Hotta Mo Betta, a mail-order company specializing in hot and spicy foods.
Even the big kids on the block are responding. Having produced its Tabasco sauce (from chilies of the same name) since 1868, the McIlhenny Company recently introduced a habanero sauce, as well as a green jalapeno sauce.
What Makes it Hurt so Good?
The heat of a chile (and a hot sauce made from it) depends on three factors. First, there's the genetic component. Habaneros are at the top of the charts for intrinsic heat, jalapenos quite a bit lower. But even within a variety, not all chilies are created equal: the 'Red Savina', a habanero from Ventura County, California, carries The Guinness Book of World Records distinction of hottest spice in the world. Frank Garcia, who named the 'Red Savina' after his mother, proudly notes that his chili is almost twice as hot as standard habaneros.
A plant's environment and growing conditions also affect heat. "Any stress can make chilies hotter: too much wind, too little heat, too little water," says Paul Bosland, professor of horticulture at New Mexico State University and a director of the nonprofit Chile Institute, an organization devoted to the study of capsicums.
The last part of the equation is our sensory perception. Different chilies have distinct flavor profiles that play their own heat tricks. Habaneros and their close cousins, Scotch bonnets, taste very fruity. "They burn in the back of the throat, and linger," says Bosland. "Tabascos glow all over the inner mouth. It's a sharp, quickly dissipating burn." Jalapenos have a green bell pepper flavor, while cayennes are sweet like red bell peppers; the heat from these and related chilies such as serrano and pasilla "hits you in the front of the mouth, tip of the tongue, and lips," says Bosland.
Why is one person's pain another's pleasure?
"There are two theories," he explains. "The first is that you're desensitizing your receptors for pain. You eat chile peppers and a molecular compound signals nerves to tell the brain you have pain. Eventually you use up the compound and you can't signal the brain. The other theory is Pavlovian: In the past, you've eaten chilies and your body produced endorphins to block the pain. Now when you eat chilies, your body remembers and makes endorphins in anticipation of the pain."
Cooling the Fire
Even confirmed hot sauce aficionados know times when the rush of pleasure becomes a rush of pain. Theories abound on the best antidote for the sting. Some swear by a guzzle of beer, others argue in favor of a mouthful of bread or spoonful of sugar. We've had the best luck nibbling on lime wedges and eating yogurt or ice cream.
Cooling the fire is fine when pain strikes hard, but what people enjoy about hot sauces is the flirt with danger, the wild ride on a sensory roller coaster that leaves you gasping, glowing, and begging for more.
Related Products to this article
 Copyright © 2004-2006 Sparky Boy Enterprises. All rights reserved.
|
 |
