When I was a freshman living in the dorms, a couple floormates challenged my friend and I to a spicy food eating contest at Buffalo Wild Wings, which of course involved their infamous blazing sauce. Did I have something to prove? Not really. Does my small intestine hate me to this day? Yes. The rules were pretty loose, something about not stopping for more than 30 seconds and an argument regarding a water-drinking provision.
There was no real winner in that contest, none at all. We may have ripped our way through burning lips and runny noses and excessive sweating and eaten 16 wings apiece. We should also get a little credit for being able to triumphantly cast those chicken bones out without even using bleu cheese sauce, but in the end we were just a bunch of dudes crying over puddles of hot sauce and ripped open Wet-Nap wrappers.
But can you say gut rot? What a horrible idea. Since then, I’ve been on a mission of revenge on spicy foods, vowing to dominate fiery foods with cool, calculating ease. The first order of business was to examine a growing threat to the nation’s tongues and gastrointestinal systems: hot sauce.
Hot sauce is defined by its main and essential ingredient — chili peppers. Most recipes call for the peppers being ground into a paste, while others use crushed peppers that have already been dried. This mash of an ingredient is then combined with vinegar, oil or even zanier fluid substrates like fruit and vegetable pulp to create the red, green and brown sauces of today.
First, the peppers are chosen for ripeness. An unripe chili that has not fully developed its seeds will not contain enough of the key compound capsaicin to be fit for production. After the mashing process, the pulp is infused with liquids to dilute the intensity and balance the flavor. Some sauces — especially Tabasco sauce — are stored in casks of white oak and aged to achieve a thicker and full-bodied sauce.
This is not the only method, as Tabasco sauce itself uses not just Tabasco peppers. In fact, a plethora of peppers can be utilized to make a wide selection of sauces. Regional influence plays a major role in the kind of peppers that are used and how recipes can differ. Temperate regions are historically the progenitors of the spiciest dishes around. Central America and equatorial Asia also bring some serious spice to the table. Latin America’s robust agricultural possibilities as well as its indigenous culinary roots form a backdrop that is chockfull of chilies. When thinking of peppers, a jalapeno or red cayenne chili might come to mind, but beyond these common pods lay some ear-ringing chilies.
A sauce’s specific heat is one of the most important factors in determining its validity as a sauce of heat. The chemical reaction that occurs on the tongue is due to the capsaicin from the chilies. This compound is derived from chilies and is an irritant to mammals but has been cultivated through selective breeding by farmers to have higher concentrations in larger specimen chilies. There is a wide range of capsaicin content depending on the chili. Red chilies like cayenne and Tabasco may have an intermediate amount of capsaicin, while Habaneros are considered fairly hot with higher capsaicin contents. The Scoville scale rates spiciness and places Red Savina Habaneros as the second hottest pepper in the world. The very hottest is the Naga Jolokia pepper also known as the Ghost Chili of Bangladesh. These peppers are about 200 times more intense than jalapenos and really shouldn’t be messed around with casually.
The United States has popularized many brands from abroad, especially considering the ubiquity of Cholula and Tapat?o. America, however, has an ace in its sleeve when it comes to Louisiana-style hot sauce. Tabasco and Frank’s RedHot are both made with distilled vinegar, salt and chili peppers. The high vinegar content of these sauces adds extra acidity into the mix and leaves a tart sourness that many users are already all too familiar with. A combination of all of the sauces mentioned in this paragraph are involved in some killer buffalo wings, which is part of the reason that a creamy sauce like bleu cheese dressing goes so well with the tanginess of bar food staple.
Other sauces can actually be sweet. Although not a flavor that is often associated with spicy foods, many Asian soups rely on a level of sweetness from whatever spicy implementation is used to balance the notorious saltiness of these and other dishes.
Being a first generation Asian-American, I should say that I am pretty used to certain ethnic dishes, many of which always had a certain level of spiciness.
Journalistic neutrality aside, my favorite brand is Huy Fong Foods’ Chili Garlic Sauce. It’s a pasty derivative of the more popular Sriracha that is as good as a condiment and a cooking ingredient. The pasty consistency means it is best mixed with another sauce or at least with something mixable like noodles or rice. I wouldn’t recommend slathering this stuff on meat, which is otherwise highly doable with sauces that are less viscous and concentrated. For a pour-all-over-everything kind of approach, I recommend Yucatan Habanero Sauce. Experience, though, has taught me to exercise a little foresight and pragmatism lest the red stuff be overdone. The heat should complement and complete the meal rather than stealing the spotlight by canceling out all other flavors.
Excluding eating fire sauce packets from Taco Bell, you foodies out there would be best advised to go out there and paint the tongue red.
Alex Truong is a junior who claims to be majoring in salsa on Facebook. Questions or comments can be sent to [email protected].
