Hey, Dad! We need to talk [1]…
…as we all feel that maybe this sauce thing is out of control
My chili sauce collection is taking over the refrigerator. It may be taking over the house. One more complaint, and I may well saucede from my family!
I like some heat on my food. Or possibly I like some food with my heat. I go through a massive amount of chili sauce in a year. To the point that I frequently will have additional bottles stashed at work or my parent’s house. The collection above is due to me consolidating those non-local reserves, one gifted to me for xmas and even trying out some newer kinds I found in various stores I have visited.
I’d like to take some time here to talk about what I prefer in what are the more ‘traditional’ chili sauces. That would be one that is predominantly made from a chili variant, with additional ingredients. But not enough to be classed as a ‘hot’ sauce, something that has heat from chilies, but is not marketed as such. That could be dipping sauces, sweet chili sauces, and a pickle (like the traditional Tabasco condiment). I will include sirachas, though they are technically a blend of chili and garlic (a delicious blend!). And avoid kimchi (which is more of a vegie relish) and any sauces boosted with pure capsaicin extract to get additional heat.
First off; what exactly is a ‘chili’?
It is a fruit. The fruit of a number of Capsicum species that originated from South America. They are a member of the nightshade family. And closely related to tomatoes, potatoes, eggplants, and (bizarrely) tobacco. They are part of the great New World plant exchange of the 1600s.
There are three to four species regularly consumed:
C. annum is the most commonly grown. It is the classic sweet capsicum or bell pepper, but will also produce a heat-bearing fruit. Paprika is obtained from a variety. Hotter varieties run from poblano, serrano to jalapenos. They also come in a variety of colours.
C. frutescens, starting to get into the heat. These are the ‘classic’ chili shaped fruit, thinner and mostly with a smooth skin. These are ones like Cayenne, Piri Piri (African Birds Eye), Malagueta and Tabasco (after the region in Mexico).
C. chinense, what we all know and fear as ‘hot pepper’. This is the Habanero or Scotch Bonnet, a globe like fruit with wrinkled skin. These tend to have a thinner skin and produce massive amounts of spicy heat. Competition eating will involve these and the varieties can have sphincter-destroying levels of the stuff. Ones like the Reapers, Trinidad Scorpion varieties, Bhut jolokia (aka Naga pepper) and the current holder of the heat record, Pepper X*.
C. pubescens gets a mention as it is the popular form grown in Europe. It resembles a sort of rounded cap, but unlike the Scotch Bonnet has a smooth skin and milder heat.
Next, why do they taste like death?
Because you’re a wuss. Next question.
Seriously? It is due to the presence of the substance capsaicin. An oily substance found in the seed membrane of the fruits. It has a unique characteristic, it will trigger the pain receptors in our mouth, tongue and back of the throat. This irritation is interpreted as actual heat and our body reacts as though we are being burned. The way to cool that heat down fast is milk, the casein in it cuts through the capsaicin oils to offer relief. In India yoghurt is always on offer with a hot curry, or a soothing lassi (yoghurt-based drink).
The plants have evolved to produce that in order to deter predation by insects and animals. And some fungi. However, they don’t bother birds. Birds are easily able to consume peppers and thus spread their seeds on behalf of the plants. But an animal would grind up and digest those seeds, so the heat is a way to deter consumption. Until people came along.
People just lack common sense. After the discovering that these plants can just about choke you, we just came back for more. The phenomenon of people being able to tolerate that heat leads to: ‘the pain receptors in the tongue and the mouth become desensitized over time if you have eaten a lot of hot food, allowing you to eat increasingly hotter foods’ [2]. And then your cousin Steve showed off when he ate that whole Carolina Reaper. He didn’t die, but jeez he sounded like he was.
Marketing and sales
Currently there are thousands of brands of chili sauce around the world. There are a number of highly recognised ones, available at the supermarket, but there is no complete listing of what you could expect to be able to buy either from smaller stores (regional foods) or even on-line. The value of the sales of bottled sauces globally was estimated to be around $3 billion USD last year, and that it expected to double by 2032.
There is even a trend that fast-food chains produce and offer their own blends to meet customer tastes. When a spot like Mad Mex in Sydney Australia will slather on an affordable and near lethal additional blast of heat to their fine product, who could say no?[3].
Next in this series, I go where few dare. Rating my collection. Then going out for more!
- [*] Ingestion of a Pepper X chili causes intense abdominal cramps and heartburn.
- [2]https://www.acs.org/content/dam/acsorg/education/resources/highschool/chemmatters/archive/chemmatters-dec2013-pepper.pdf
- [3] ‘Turn up the spice level at Mad Mex with their Trinidad Scorpion Hot Sauce, made from the 3rd hottest chilli in the world. Are you brave enough to take on the heat?’ August 2024
All images remain IP of creators; Chilies [ Timothy L Brock; https://unsplash.com/@timothylbrock ] / Beer and Tabasco bottle [ Betsai Ekmeir; https://www.pexels.com/@betsai-ekmeiro-11923614/ ]
