Hot Sauce Sutra

ÉÈk ometimes-beforetakingthefirst èfe m hite out of a burrito, I envision WP Charlie Yardbird Parker having f o ur enchiladas, two Mexican beers, five American cigarettes and a doublé tray before his gig. This scenario just looms up in front of me like cinema, bríght and tight as Bird's "South of the Border" album, which jazz purísts consider "too commercial," and which I hear in my head nice 'n' loud without fail as I sit with my very own burrito: Be bop in the beans. Cubano beep, Cubano bop. Chana pozo! Machito and his Afro-Cuban Salseros with Bird in front, alto sax in his arms. He can make anything elegant, enlightening, meaningful even in spite of the tune: La Cucaracha suddenly makes deep sense - somehow no longer tri te. Am I easily pleased? You bet your life. Affordable Mexican food, undiluted Jazz, and a good selection of hot sauces from all over the world - these are a few of my favorite things. What Tve come before you to discuss today is the hot sauce clause in the previous paragraph. You probably already know the best places to get good Mexican food in this part of the county. But the subject of hot sauce specifically places our inquiry within the cozy confínes of Tios Mexican Cafe in do wn to w n Ann Arbor. For it is here that on the First Sunday of every month the public is invited to a Hot Sauce Tasting Party (at least I consider it a party), when half of the tables in the place are covered with dozens upon dozens of boules of sauces, salsas, relishes, mustards, vinegars, oils, jellies, jams, horseradish, ketchups, chutneys and pickled oddi - lies. This list of condiments comes directly from my Little Red Book. Not Chairman Mao's, but rather the chapbook-sized hot sauce sampling guide which is issued to every participant. I see that as of December 5th 1993 I had tasted 124 sauces; that by April 6th 1994 1 had only managed to raise that tally to 140; and, af ter an unexplained lapse, on December 1 st 1996 1 tried 22 sauces which I'd not yet experienced, bringing my total thus f ar to 162 condiments sampled. This makes me somewhat of a weight. One charac ter reportedly has made it through 600 items! And there are my good fríends Ron and Kathy from Whiünore Lake wbo it seems are familiar faces at the montbly fire-eatings. Ron has probably gotten nis count up somewhere near 500. 1 can see him now, laughing mysteriously as he noshes a cracker covered with magma. Yes, crackers. You didn't, I hope, think that we'd actually spoon the stuff down without some soit of a buffering agent. The people at Tios have thought this out carefully; among the many sauce boules are trays of tortilla chips and 1 i ule crackers each with a dab of cream cheese or the like. This is imperative if you' re going past two or three samples. Not everyone is into this kind of behavior. Folks who do participate stand to win little rewards for their perseverance; onehundred tastes gets you a Tios T-shirt. Twohundred might nab you a pair of hot pepper boxer shorts. I'm not sure of the exact correspondence of tallies-to-prizes, but there are hot pepper aprons to be had, as well as a bewildering assortment of thematically appropriateknickknacks, mostly depicting peppers or cacti. Last time I checked, Tios had added an extra window display of this merchandise, including a hot pepper mailbox flag replacement. What will they think of next. Back to the Little Red Book: It is divided into sections, with a rating system to the right of the brand ñames. Each sauce gets rated: Poor, Mediocre, Good, Very Good and Spectacular. I'm not one to cop judgements unnecessarily, and was at fïrst reluctant to be so fussy. Then, as one sauce followed another, the system made good sense, as the differences became apparent. Often have I observed Tim - Tios' owner and operator - and his wife Harriet smiling with grim satisfaction at the exclamations of delight (or dismay) which 1111 the air at the salsa samplings. Tim recommends no more than 25 or 30 samples per session, lest one's innards rebel a few hours down the road. Many of us who have lived life to such extremes are happy to have something relatively harmless with which to indulge ourselves. sla Vieques Hot 'n ' Honey mixture, from Puerto Rico, for example, is sweet and pleasantly hot, more readily applicable than, say, Scorned Woman Hot Sauce, from Oak HUI Farms, Atlanta, Georgia. This shit is deadly serious, and one bottle is lasting me a good long while. As examples of sauces which are frankly too hot for anybody ' s own good, Tim singled out Dave's Gourmet Insanity Sauce, from San Francisco, and the infamous Endorphin Rush, bottled in Elmwood Park, Illinois. Our host states rather pragmatically that these don' teven taste all thatgreat; tbey'remainly composed of hot pepper essence, like a biochemical warfare concéntrate. Nevertheless, both of these corrosi ves are readily available by the bottle at Tios, along with some 250 other brands. The choice is yours. What I've included here constitutes only one person's incidental ünpressions. Anyone interested should attend the monthly sessions, hang out and talk with the (literally) seasoned veterans. Or you can visit Tios during the day and ask for access to the big stash of sauces and conduct your own tasting. But really try and make those gettogethers on the fïrst Sunday of the month. Tim is a wonderful, friendly, intense, hardworking human being, genuinely happy to see people enjoying themselves, and he's ready most anytime (when there's time) to discuss the worldof hot pepper preparations. Salsas, at Tios, is adesignation reserved for thick and chunky, usually tomato-based mixtures often found in jars rather than bottles. Ay Caramba! Infernally Hot Glaze was Very Good, as was Arthur's San-Tone Picante line, offering a choice of Black Eye Peas, Posóle (Hominy), Kidney Beans or Yellow Squash. Coyote Cocina Fire-Roasted Salsa, Prosperity Farms International Tomingo and the Don Alfonso variants all got the Spectacular rating out of the likes of me. Southeast United States Style Sauces refer not only to geography, but, as the wording implies, to a certain tradition of hot & spicey (often salty & vinegary) mixology. My favorites included Brennan's Classic Hot Sauce, Mezzattas California Hot Sauce, Pee Wee's Cajun Cayenne Juice, Rebel Fire (1 and 2), Try-Me Tennessee Sunshine, Chef Paul Prudhomme's Magie Pepper Sauce, Southwest Habanero Hot Sauce From Heil, Larry Forgione's Smokey Southwest Salsa, Iguana Red Pepper Sauce, and Captain Redbeard's Sharkbite. Time-honored Ilhenny 's Habanero Tabasco, of course, was Very Good. The goofily labeled Smack-MyAss-and-Call-Me-Sally sauce was merely Good. West Indies Style Sauces - this is probably my preferred category. It does include the several shades of Clancy's Fancy Hot Sauce (with an Irish Crone-Goddess intensity), bottled right here in Ann Arbor. Now meet the rich and unforgettable spectrum of Caribbean cookery: Evadney' 's All-Purpose Hot Sauce, Island Delight Savoury Sauce, Mrs. Dog 's Dangerously Hot Pepper Sauce, Trinidad Habanero Extra Hot, West Indies Creóle Hot Pepper Sauce, DesertRose Tango Tamarind or Papaya, Calypso Queen Jamaican Jerk Marinade, Mosquito Coast Pírate' s Delight, and the long-standing favorite, Pickapeppa Sauce, which is bottled on Shooter's Hill, Manchester, West Jamaica. It's ahnest like a Worchestershire sauce, ihaiiks to the inclusión of mangos, tamarinds and raisins in the recipe. I also dig the parrot on the label. During the most recent tasting, I disco vered something called Rast a Fire which wasn't all that hot necessarily . Instead it was very flavorful; so much so that I would openly consent to eat it on waffles. Mexican Style Sauces is a smaller category, and one suspects that anything included here has a certain authenticity to it. Montezuma Chile Chipotle rated highest with me, although I keep plenty of Valentina 's around at home, as it is a good general purpose polion. Asían, African and Oriental Style Sauces represent an entire hemisphere of possibilties which I need to research more fully. My notes indicate a preference for Bangkok Cuisine Thai Peanut Dip, but really I'd need to do more research to provide the public with a well-rounded report. For more info. abo ut Tios ' monthly Hot Sauce Tastings (firstSundayofthemonth), visit Tios Mexican Cafe, 333 E. Huron, Ann Arbor or cali 761-66S0. Also, stop by Main Street News (220 S. Main SL) and get your own copy of Chile Pepper Magazine. This is the publication which Tint names as having inspired hint to start selling and celebraüng salsas in the fint place.