"hot sauces" news and stories

Photo: www.houstonhotsauce.com

September might be halfway over and autumn imminent, but that doesn't mean the fall food fun has to end. Here's a selection of September food fests across the country.

Nappanee Apple Festival, Nappanee, Ind., Sept. 17-20: Apple season is upon us. Many are headed to pick-your-own orchards. This festival includes an apple-peeling contest, apple bake-off, pie-eating contest and the world's largest baked apple pie, weighing in at 600 pounds and a whopping 7 feet across. There's a daily lumberjack show, too.

The Houston Hot Sauce Festival, Houston, Sept. 19-20: Hot sauce festivals are on fire! Nationwide, they're popular, chilehead blow-outs. Attendees can sample and purchase a plethora of sauces, chiles and dry rubs. Don't forget to vote in the People's Choice for the Hottest Hot Sauce at this ninth annual festival.

Masochists and chile-heads have a British stockbroker to thank for unleashing Naga Snake Bite Sauce on the world. The fiery brew is made from what some claim is the world's hottest pepper. According to the sauce's creator, Mark McMullan, the naga morich chili clocks in at a breathtaking 1,598,227 Scoville Heat Units, beating out the bhut jolokia chili. In any case the dorset naga hasn't been certified by Guinness, while the bhut jolokia has.

The finer points of world records aside, one thing's for sure McMullan has created one blisteringly hot sauce. To give an idea, the dorset naga is 300 times hotter than a jalapeno. The pepper's name derives from the naga, a snakelike creature from Indian mythology. This may explain why the label claims the sauce is "Like drinking cobra venom." I don't think cobra venom is spicy, but it's certainly deadly.

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You know it - it's the Asian hot sauce that comes in a squeeze bottle with the little green tip. In college, maybe you called it "Rooster" for the picture of the rooster on the front, like we did, because we had no idea how to say "sriracha." It's a staple. If i have nothing else in the refrigerator, like Nick, I have a half-full bottle of sriracha (because it never stays full for long).

I don't know what it is about sriracha that makes me want to put it on everything. Everything, I say, from scrambled eggs to mac and cheese to...pizza? Yes, pizza. If you're a sriracha lover, pizza is probably not even an unusual recipient for a lovely back and forth drizzle of the stuff.

But recently, on a night of Indian take-out, I found myself squeezing the stuff on my naan, as if it were completely normal. My dining companion at first gave me a strange look, then grabbed the bottle. "That's brilliant!"

What's the strangest thing you've done with sriracha sauce (in the kitchen, that is)?