Some Like it Hot!

Oh yeah, America has had a long, long love affair with hot, spicy, steaming food. Muy Caliente!

Say it, come on, you want to say it! Say it as if you were in a reality show. Muy Caliente! Let it roll off the tongue with that deep, sexy inflection and watch the person in front of you give you that mischievous smile, that wink of the eye. Muy, MUY CALIENTE!

You’re on your way to becoming a latin lover, to embrace the swarthy little Mexican we all carry deep inside our genes.

The spicy food trend has grown tremendously across the US, especially in border cities where we have such a huge influence of Mexican cuisine, and have to thank that red, cute fruit. (It says in Wikipedia that it’s a fruit so it must be true.) the chile. Not chili or chilly. Chile; like the country.

So, chiles are hot, but what makes them hot? A chemical known as capsaicin. The very same thing they use now in Pepper sprays. And how much is too much? Well, we have to thank Wilbur L. “Red cheeks” Scoville (1865-1942), an American chemist who first devised a way to measure the hotness in chiles.

The Scoville Scale goes from 0 in the bell pepper to 16,000,000 in pure capsaicin. Check out the scale and a video of grown men crying here: https://ushotstuff.com/Heat.Scale.htm

If we follow the scale we can say that HDV can go from 0 to 325,000 with the push of a grinder button, but most of our salsas range from 30,000 on down. We are nothing if not responsible with the power given to us by our Aztec forefathers.

In other words we have from the mild, just –a-tingling sensation on the palate to the red cheek watery eyes effect. Oh yeah, we can get Muy Caliente!

There is a hot wave invading America and I’m really proud of contributing to this movement by doing our part in exposing our guests to many different kinds of chiles and their own particular level of hotness.

We also get to see some very funny faces from time to time…

P.S.

A couple of years ago we hosted an event for “Slow Foods” about salsas and their importance in Mexican cuisine. It was such a cool event! I’m gonna look for the presentation and if I can find it, I’ll post it soon. Stay tuned…