Still Fired Up
By Rachel Feit, Fri., Aug. 27, 1999
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When I was growing up, salsa usually involved a simple combination of puréed tomatoes with a small quantity of chiles in a cold sauce used exclusively for dipping tortilla chips. It was something that we got when we went to the local Tex-Mex eatery, a trendy spot frequented by twentysomething hippies. Although at the time it seemed blisteringly hot to my 10-year-old palate, I realize in retrospect that the 1970s northern Virginia version of salsa was a far cry from the fiery condiments served on Austin tables today. Back then, though, salsa was exotic; it was new.
Today, it is a well-known fact that salsa is the most popular condiment in the U.S., surpassing even ketchup in sales. In contemporary America, salsa involves not only tomatoes but other fruits such as pineapple, beans, mango, and tomatillos. Indeed, many salsas don't even make use of the conventional tomato base I remember so well. However, all salsas still share a universal dependence on chiles. What is it then about the chile that so attracts not just Americans, but peoples all over the world?
In the nine years since the Austin Chronicle Hot Sauce Festival began, attendance has swelled, first overfilling the narrow halls of the Austin Farmer's Market on Burnet, then the oak-shaded lawn in front of Central Park, to arrive at its most recent home in Waterloo Park. It is now the largest hot sauce festival in the world. Curiously, the contest draws 30% more male than female contestants. Like grilling, there's clearly something about hot sauce that strongly attracts the male animal. As one individual suggested, perhaps it's the heat and the sweat it produces -- it's addictive. Of course, that doesn't explain the disparity between the numbers of male and female competitors. However, it may offer some insight into why people return every year for taste bud abuse coupled with brutal August heat. We interviewed a few festival repeat offenders and asked them to share their ideas along with their personal salsa stories.
Russel Lewis
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"I don't believe that pain is a condiment," says 47-year-old Russel Lewis about the hot sauce bravado that argues hotter is better. Still, he concedes that in his 10 years of making hot sauce, he has developed a heightened tolerance to heat. When asked about what attracts him to the contest every year, he muses "there's something about eating a lot of spicy sauce when it's 100 degrees outside that I find somehow refreshing." Lewis hasn't missed a year of the Hot Sauce Festival -- true dedication when you consider that he has yet to win or even come close to winning in any category. However, like many contestants I talked to, for Lewis it's not about winning or losing, but about the spirit of the event, which is just plain fun.
A man who talks like his mouth was on fire, Lewis could be the poster child for the Austin Chronicle Hot Sauce Festival. He's one of those gregarious characters that just seem so-o-o Austin-ish -- who always has a story to tell, who has done a little bit of everything, and who has been a hot sauce aficionado for years. A food lover and avid cook, Lewis usually enters at least one different sauce every year. He incorporates a variety of preparations and ingredients, some fresh, some canned, depending on the type of sauce. How the sauce is used, he believes, will generally dictate not only the ingredients but also the style.
This year he plans to make two entries: a roasted vegetable salsa and -- his current favorite -- a salsa he calls his Christmas Sauce, a sweet and spicy cooked salsa that he likes to eat with tamales. Although he feels strongly that the Christmas Sauce is the best he has ever made, he's not sure that its idiosyncratic sweet-and-sour flavor will make it past hot sauce traditionalists. "People either love it or they hate it," Lewis says. So far it hasn't met with much success: He has entered it into the contest several times already and hasn't won. But who knows, perhaps 1999 will be the year of the Christmas Sauce.
Kevin & Jill Lewis -- Austin Slow Burn
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According to Kevin and Jill Lewis, founders of local hot sauce company Austin Slow Burn, the first Austin Chronicle Hot Sauce Festival changed their lives. They didn't win. However, they had such a good time that they continued to experiment with hot sauces and salsas. As years went by, friends suggested they try to bottle and sell their sauce. The Lewises talked about it for almost five years, but never acted. "Three years ago," says Jill, "on New Year's Eve we vowed to take the plunge or never mention it again." They did, and now business is almost too hot to handle. At the National Fiery Foods Show this year, their jerk sauce won first place. "We even beat out a guy from Jamaica," Jill brags. Their Habanero-Rosemary Jelly also took first place in a separate category, while their salsa fell into a comfortable third.
It quickly becomes clear to anyone who talks to Jill Lewis that hot sauce permeates all aspects of family life at the Lewis household. Jill and Kevin discuss the differences between chile types as casually as most people talk about their favorite breakfast cereal. They eat hot sauce over eggs, with pasta, with meat loaf, or with fish. Anything ketchup can do for food, Jill says, hot sauce can do better. Jill keeps the business going while Kevin maintains another job as kitchens operations manager at Chuy's. Together he and Jill continue to develop new products for their hot sauce line. Even their 13-year-old son takes part in the business. His responsibilities include bottle labeling and chile con queso preparation. This year, the Lewises are unveiling a new product: a creole sauce that they will enter in the contest under the special sauces category. They also plan to enter the individual category with a fresh roasted tomato salsa (medium heat) that Kevin developed in his spare time. Now that they are professional bottlers, they don't always enter the individual category. This year, however, they have something special they want to share, not as commercial bottlers, but as plain ol' hot and spicy food lovers.
Robert and Curtis Ischy
Robert Ischy has entered the Austin Chronicle Hot Sauce Contest every year since 1991. A few years after his first competition, he convinced his cousin Curtis to enter as well. Today the Ischy cousins both enter the contest, competing with each other for the prized pepper. "It's more of a family activity than a family rivalry, though" says Curtis Ischy of Jarrell, about the hot sauce hobby he shares with Robert.
Like Gemini twins, Robert and Curtis, both 35, grew up practically as brothers in the Austin area. However, their tastes are as dissimilar as a pair of strangers. Robert loves to cook, and is a consummate experimenter when it comes to food. Consequently, his hot sauces reflect a certain iconoclasm. Among his favorite inventions are a mango and red pepper hot sauce and a peach chipotle sauce, both of which tend to weigh in at the heavy end of the Scoville scale that measures heat in chiles. Robert never enters the same sauce twice; rather, he creates a new recipe for every contest. By contrast, Curtis does not consider himself a cook; instead, he describes himself as "a meat and potatoes man." Not particularly adventurous where food is concerned, he enters the same sauce every year: a simple red sauce, which he characterizes as short on heat but long on flavor.
Nevertheless, the Ischy cousins are united when it comes to their hot sauce philosophy. Both feel strongly that only fresh ingredients can go into the preparation. Curtis prepares his hot sauce from vegetables he grows in his garden in Jarrell, while Robert purchases his ingredients from Central Market, which he claims has the best produce in town. Although neither cousin has ever won the contest, they continue to enter year after year. For the Ischys, the contest isn't about winning, but about the vibrant, community atmosphere that pervades each yearly event. They love getting out there to sweat, drink beer, and eat a lot of chips and hot sauce.
