The Geography of Hot Sauce

Andrew Zimmern and Adam Richman make a living ferreting out foods they call "bizarre" or "challenging," including a variety of hot foods and sauces that are desirable because of their scoville rating rather than the flavor, history, or cultural significance of the food itself. Their food story is a tale of male bravado and television ratings.

This story is not about them.

In general, I am not a big fan of hot sauce. As a child of the Midwest, the spiciest things I remember eating were my Grandma's Hot German Potato Salad (which had a stinging bite of vinegar and black pepper with the comforting flavor of bacon), and my neighbor's homemade barbecue sauce (with fresh horseradish). Spicy food was not served in the house I grew up in. There was a lot of steak and potatoes, meatloaf and Wonder Bread. Taco night was as spicy as it got--ground beef seasoned with Lawry's (Mild) Taco Seasoning Mix.

The first bona fide hot sauce I remember tasting was Tabasco sauce. I must have been around 8 years old, and was eating breakfast at some iconic Midwestern restaurant like Bob's Big Boy while on a road trip. Just before the eggs and pancakes arrived at the table, the waitress delivered maple syrup (they still served the real stuff back then), ketchup, and Tabasco sauce. I unscrewed the cap and tipped a few drops into my teaspoon. Then I took a lick.

The predominant flavor in Tabasco sauce then (as it is now) is vinegar. Since I'd already associated the flavor "spicy" with the tangy zip of vinegar, I assumed that the all hot sauces were "vinegar with a kick." I wasn't interested. I recapped the bottle and took a big swig of milk just as breakfast arrived.

Fast forward to high school in Southern California--the land of In 'n' Out, taco trucks and a whole aisle of hot sauces in any given supermarket. And chiles--fresh and dried: jalapeno, habanero, serrano, chilaca, pasilla, anaheim, ancho, poblano, guajillo, banana peppers, and scotch bonnets. It was a culinary epiphany for me.

The two hot sauces that I saw everywhere were Cholula and Tapatio. They sat on the table at burger joints, taquerias, and Denny's. I noted that people frequently asked for one or the other by name, and that one could not be substituted for the other in the same way that a Coke cannot be substituted for a Pepsi (I have family with strong cola loyalties).

And so I came to know these two hot sauces. I dated them both for a while, trying them both on everything from eggs to fried chicken to carnitas.

Tapatio wooed me in the end.

Tapatio has been around longer than I have. According to the Tapatio Website, Mr. Jose-Luis Saavedra, Sr. began making his hot sauce in 1971 in Maywood, California in Los Angeles County, and initially sold it on a consignment basis at local markets. It was well received by the Hispanic community in Los Angeles, and its popularity spread throughout Southern California. More than thirty-five years later, the company is still family owned and sells the hot sauce across the country in grocery stores, to food service, and has packets that I've been told are available in some military MREs.

So I'm not the only one who likes it.

But as I've travelled around the country, I've noted some very interesting things about where Tapatio can (and cannot) be found.

In the East Village of Manhattan in the late 1990's, I couldn't find a bottle of Tapatio to save my life. There was abundant Latin food--restaurants with food from Cuba, Guatemala, Chile, the Dominican Republic--but no "real" Mexican food (Benny's Burritos doesn't count). I was able to rustle up a bottle in a little Mexican market further up Avenue A a few years ago--after a friend had taken pity on me and shipped two 32 oz bottles of Tapatio from California.

More recently while on an extended stay in Baltimore, I asked my brother-in-law to pick up a bottle on his weekly run to a local mega-mart. To my dismay he returned to report that they did not carry that particular brand.

The next day, I tried two other sizable grocery stores. I found the hot sauce shelf in the "condiments" section, where Cholula was sitting right next to the Tabasco. Alas, no Tapatio.

A few weeks later I returned to the mega-mart at which my brother-in-law likes to shop. I was in search of miso paste and was directed to the "Ethnic" aisle. The "Oriental" section was devoid of all things miso, but over the top of the aisle I spied, lined up like little soldiers, the reddish-orange cap of what I knew was Tapatio Hot Sauce.

And there, in the "Mexican" section, among the Goya Guava Nectar and the Abuellita Hot Chocolate, was my beloved Tapatio Hot Sauce.

The Tapatio label depicts a mustached man in a bright yellow jacket with a sombrero against a plain white background. It is a stereotype of a Mexican man proliferated by the hilarious performances of Steve Martin et al. in Three Amigos, and the less than hilarious performances of waiters in sombreros at the now defunct Chi Chi's Restaurants.

So what can be learned from the location of hot sauce in a grocery store? What can be said of a domestic hot sauce stocked in the "Ethnic" section, and a hot sauce manufactured in Mexico (Cholula is made in Jalisco) keeping company with the iconic American Tabasco on the mainstream condiment shelf?

What it means to me is that I'll be putting a bottle of Tapatio in my checked luggage from now on. Hey, a girl's got to have her condiments.

Please Don't Pass the Peanut Butter

Peanut Butter, the ubiquitous American lunch box staple, is baffling the FDA and CDC with a dangerous foodborne illness: Salmonella.

Today the US Food and Drug Administration issued a statement advising against the consumption of products containing peanut butter. "Based on this information, and on the current state of the investigation, the FDA recommends that consumers avoid eating products that have been recalled and discard them. Because identification of products subject to recall is continuing, the FDA urges consumers to postpone eating peanut butter-containing products until further information becomes available about which products may be affected. Efforts to specifically identify those products are ongoing."

Most peanut butter sold in jars at supermarkets appears to be safe, said Stephen Sundlof, head of the Food and Drug Administration’s food safety center. "We urge consumers to postpone eating any products that may contain peanut butter until additional information becomes available," Sundlof told reporters via conference call. "As of now, there is no indication that the major national name-brand jars of peanut butter sold in retails stores are linked to the recall."

Illness linked to this outbreak of Salmonella have been reported in 43 states, and deaths in Minnesota, Virginia, Idaho and North Carolina are being investigated.

In a state press release issued yesterday, the Connecticut Department of Consumer Protection declared their Department of Public Health Laboratory has confirmed the presence of Salmonella Type B in an unopened five-pound tub of King Nut Peanut Butter that had reached City Line distributors in West Haven, Connecticut. “This is the first unopened tub of King Nut peanut butter found in the country that is definitively identified as being tainted with salmonella,” said Consumer Protection Commissioner Jerry Farrell, Jr.

The list of products that may be affected is still being determined and is incomplete at this time.
Companies that have issued voluntary recalls for products containing potentially contaminated peanut products include the Kellogg Company, Perry's and Wegman's, Hy-Vee, King Nut, and the Peanut Corporation of America--the peanut processing company and maker of peanut butter and peanut paste for bulk distribution to institutions, food service industries, and private label food companies. To date, no mandatory recall has been issued by any company, or government agency. The FDA has compiled a list of products known to be implicated at this point in the investigation.

The Center for Disease Control in Atlanta, Georgia, further advises consumers to do the following:

--Do not eat products that have been recalled and throw them away in a manner that prevents others from eating them.

--Postpone eating other peanut butter containing products (such as cookies, crackers, cereal, candy and ice cream) until information becomes available about whether that product may be affected.

--Persons who think they may have become ill from eating peanut butter are advised to consult their health care providers.

Salmonella was first identified by Theobald Smith, research-assistant to Daniel E. Salmon (for whom the bacterium is named), while investigating the causes of hog cholera. Since then, over 2300 strains have been isolated. Salmonella has generally been associated with undercooked poultry and eggs. In the past five years, outbreaks of the food borne illness in the United States have been linked to tomatoes, basil, spinach, lettuce, alfalpha sprouts, cantaloupe, chocolate bars and cocoa, raw milk, soft cheeses, almonds, breakfast cereals, drinking water, and pet food.

According to the FDA website, eating food contaminated with Salmonella can result in abdominal cramping, diarrhea, and fever. Most people infected with Salmonella develop the symptoms 12 to 72 hours after infection. However, in some persons, the diarrhea may be so severe that the patient needs to be hospitalized. In these patients, the Salmonella infection may spread from the intestines to the blood stream, and then to other body sites and can cause death unless the person is treated promptly with antibiotics. Older adults, infants, and those with impaired immune systems are more likely to experience severe illness, and should be seen by a physician if they experience these symptoms.

I'm in the kitchen; bring me the butter.

I am a cook. I've been a cook for as long as I can remember. My grandma put me to work in the kitchen as soon as I was old enough to peel a carrot. I was baking chocolate chip cookies by myself when I was seven years old. I could roast a chicken by the time I was ten. In times of sadness or joy, crisis or celebration, funerals or baptisms, you will find me in the kitchen.

Once, when my sister Vanessa left a message that she had to rush my aunt to the emergency room because she was having symptoms of a heart attack, I tried in vain to contact someone--anyone--by cell phone. When I finally put the phone down, I realized I was in the kitchen. I couldn't fix my aunt's heart. But I could bake some brownies. And roast a pork loin. And make a pot of chicken soup. However things turned out, people would have to eat.

Fortunately, my aunt and her heart were fine. She and my sister came over for dinner. I told them to bring a crowd.

When I was in my 20's, I was in a car accident and suffered a serious neck injury. I stayed with Vanessa in Baltimore and had a multiple level spinal fusion surgery at Johns Hopkins. My sister, Jen (a physical therapist), came down from New York, and other family members rallied around me. A few days after the surgery, I came home to Vanessa's house. I was in a tremendous amount of pain and groggy from medication. But as I walked into the house, I heard talk of a grocery run. Jen said to get some chocolate chip cookies--the good kind from the bakery, not the kind in the package.

And without missing a beat, it became clear to me what needed to be done. I was not able to stand without assistance. I was wearing a neck and back brace. I was under the influence of at least three narcotic drugs. And with great clarity and conviction I declared,

"I'm in the kitchen; bring me the butter."

For a moment, everyone was silent. And then they started laughing. I didn't understand why, even as I shuffled into the guestroom and it took three people to get me into the bed.

A few years ago, I was in a professional kitchen and a pot literally fell on my head, knocking me out. When I regained consciousness, my chef was insisting that I go to the hospital. "But I have a pie in the oven!" I protested. He sat me down with an ice pack while he found someone to drive me the two miles to the nearest hospital. "And the sables! Pull the sables!" I exclaimed as they ushered me out of the kitchen.

As it turned out, my neck had broken. Again.

A friend collected my kitchen tools and came to see me in the emergency room that evening. "Chef said to tell you your sables were perfect. Absolutely perfect." He brought one to show me Chef wasn't saying it just to be nice. They really were perfect. That praise was stronger than the morphine.

The next week was Thanksgiving, and I found myself staying with relatives for the holiday. I was told to wear a neck brace, but was able to manage without one. Still, no one would let me cook or lift anything, which was more painful and upsetting than the injury itself. And as I sat on the couch watching football with the guys, I came up with a plan.

At 3:00 AM, when everyone was sound asleep, I slipped on my robe and tiptoed into the kitchen. I opened the refrigerator and grabbed the butter....

Miss Irene's in Fells Point, Baltimore

While visiting Baltimore for the holidays I happened into Miss Irene's in Fells Point, on the corner of Thames and Ann Street. I had seen the Chef the week before, in the street outside the restaurant, wearing his short sleeved chef coat in the sub-freezing cold, shaking hands with a delivery man from a local dairy. As he turned to go back inside, he gave me a quick wave. I briefly thought that he had mistaken me for someone he knew, then I remembered I was in Baltimore. Folks here are friendly, Hon.

I didn't realize how new the place was until one of the servers had mentioned they'd only been opened about three weeks. He mentioned that the chef, Kenneth Plante, also oversaw the kitchen down the block at the Waterfront Hotel (which has not been a hotel since 1955, and is currently a restaurant and bar. The 1990's TV series Homicide: Life on the Streets used the Waterfront to film bar scenes. But that's another story.)

We didn't have a reservation, but there was no wait for our party of three to be seated for dinner. The hostess ushered us past the bar on the street level, up the stairs to the much more intimate bar adjacent to the dining room, and suggested cocktails while our table was prepared. The offer was so graciously made we could do nothing but accept. Tiffany, the bartender, grew up in Dundalk, not far from Fells Point. She handed over the specialty cocktails menu and seemed as delighted that I was familiar with some of the specialty liqueurs as I was to see them in use: Calvados, St. Germain, Pernod. I ordered a "Riposte." She set a martini glass on the bar, filled it with ice and water to chill, and went about the business of concocting my beverage.

While she poured and stirred and shook, she spoke fondly of "Chef Kenny," whom she has known for years, and of Miss Irene Glyphis, the namesake of the restaurant, an immigrant from Greece, who died in 1995. She and her husband, Mr. Mike, had owned the building, living on the second floor and running the bar downstairs that was called the River Drive Inn. The locals in the gritty neighborhood that Fells was back then all knew the place as "Miss Irene's," and when the current owners purchased the building from the Glyphis family in 2005, they asked if they could keep the name. Reaching for a brown apothecary bottle, Tiffany thoughtfully finished the drink with a few drops of bitters and placed the cocktail before me.

The Riposte hit its mark.

We sat and contemplated another cocktail, settling into the relaxed atmosphere--the warm tones of the dark wood, the soft lighting, the familiar smells of bread and roasted meat. After a few more sips, Chef Kenny appeared behind the bar, filling a large cup with ice and water. He greeted us briefly, then returned to the kitchen. It was time to sit for dinner.

There were a few dietary restrictions in our party, including a vegetarian and a shell fish allergy, both of which were thoughtfully accommodated.

We started with two specials: a special house salad for the vegetarian (no prosciutto), and Beet Bisque (velvety texture, rich flavor, beautiful color--I won that round). House bread was served with regular and chili infused olive oils. Then came the Duck Risotto with caramelized onions and mushrooms--rich flavors, but disappointing textures. Bits of duck were small and could only be distinguished from bits of mushroom because they were tough. The risotto itself, however, was cooked perfectly. The House Made Pasta (pappardelle?) with walnuts, dates, figs and lobster (there was also supposed to be Humboldt Fog, but maybe it melted?) was excellent. I'll definitely order the pasta again. We saw the lamb shank and the pork chop walk. Those are on my list of things to try next time, too.

Dessert was a bit of a disappointment. Like many restaurants these days, they don't have a pastry chef, but they did boast some "house made" desserts. The Tahitian Vanilla Creme Brulee was disappointing--the custard tasted like it was made from a mix, but the burnt sugar top was crisp and delicate. The Apple Galette was less disappointing, but the puff pastry crust tasted like a food service frozen staple. The ice cream was Haagen Daz.

The service was a mix of casual but professional, refined but not stuffy, knowledgeable but not know-it-all. And although they've only been opened a few weeks, the service was fluid--as if the staff have already worked together (who knows, maybe they have).

I returned to Miss Irene's three times in the following week. On Thursday evening I stopped by for a quiet drink, only to find the bar overrun with men in suits. Was there a convention? It was a mystery. A server, Rusty, recognized me from my first visit, and my deer-in-the-headlights stare from his years of experience. He offered to let me have my drink in the bar upstairs. I climbed the wooden staircase and slipped into the already familiar seat on the right side of the bar. Doug, an evening bartender, was prepping for service. We spoke about the apothecary bottles, which contained bitters from the Fee Brothers. And then the Chef appeared behind the bar again, just as Doug was mentioning that he'd love to be able to make his own bitters, but they have to sit in the bottle for 3 months. "You going somewhere?" asked the Chef with a laugh as he sidled out of the bar with a soda.

I ordered the Tomato Basil Bisque.

Doug and I chatted briefly about cocktails and speakeasies, and he handed me the current issue of Imbibe magazine. I read about some "hidden" bars in NYC, DC, and San Francisco. I took some notes. I asked about the lunch menu, which Doug procured without hesitation. He recommended the "Crepe" Lasagne. I was intrigued.

The Bisque arrived--delicious and piping hot, though out of season.

Rusty stopped by to ask about my friends who he remembered from our first dinner. I mentioned we'd be coming again for dinner over the weekend. He insisted on making the reservation right then, and seating us in his section. I asked if he was from Baltimore. He said he'd moved from Anchorage, Alaska and that Baltimore was supposed to be his first stop on the East Coast. But he'd made so many good friends he decided to stay. I smiled and thought of my sister, who has been lobbying for me to move to Baltimore. I made a mental tally of Rusty and Miss Irene's in the "pros" column.

At home, I did some research on Miss Irene. I found this lovely story, including a bit about her granddaughter, Emily.

The next day I returned for lunch. I did not recognize any of the wait staff, and my server--Will--seemed new and uncertain. I asked about beers, which he admitted that he was still learning about. My ongoing search for a Porter on tap led to a brief discussion about dark beers. In the end he brought me a Guinness. And I ordered the Lasagne.

I asked Will about the bartender, who I had not seen on my previous visit, but who looked slightly familiar and very comfortable behind the bar. "His name is John Ryan," he replied. "And you have to say 'John Ryan' when you refer to him. He's an institution in Baltimore. Everyone knows him. I could be in a bar anywhere and say I work with John Ryan, and people say, 'Ah! John Ryan!' He's a rock star." I looked again at John Ryan and wondered what stories he could tell. I made a mental note to come again and sit at his bar.

The view from my table by the window was lovely. It was mid-afternoon and the sun was shining on the water of Baltimore's Inner Harbor. I thought of a young man, my ancestor from ten generations ago, who arrived here in Baltimore on a ship from England. He'd spent a month at sea to get here, then married and spent the rest of his life in Baltimore. I'd travelled from here across a continent a dozen times in the past few years, but have yet to make it to the shores where from which he came. I wondered if he'd ever eaten a crepe. And if he liked Porters.

The Crepe Lasagne arrived, and it was just as Doug had described it. Three crepes were layered with bechamel, cheese, and sliced sausage, then baked until bubbly and topped with fresh sliced green onions. The crepes lent a sense of lightness, and the bechamel and sausage gave a satisfying richness to the dish. I savored every bite.

At the bar, a young woman was speaking to an older gentleman about hanging his paintings in the restaurant. I could tell he was local by his accent. The young lady mentioned an opening night reception and that they wanted him to give a toast. He shifted uncomfortably on his bar stool, then ordered a Coke. John Ryan procured one post-haste.

I sat in the warm sunlight for a while, enjoying a fullness of belly and a few pages of my book before bundling up to take the brisk walk home. And out of the corner of my eye I spied the chef, pulling another drink of water behind the bar. I smiled on my good fortune--to have had several delicious memories in the past week, all at the hands of this chef and his staff.