[CH] Re: Collecting Hot Sauce

Alex Silbajoris (asilbajo@hotmail.com)
Sun, 28 Apr 2002 15:09:39 +0000 

>From: Mary Going <mary@firegirl.com>

>I'm looking for stories from people about collecting hot sauce


Well Mary, now you've done it.  At the prompt of your inquiry, I finally 
went through my household and counted all the hot sauces I have.  For this 
count, I let "hot sauce" include pickled hot peppers and  pepper pastes, but 
not my own canned hot sauces I've made over the years.

The grand total is 102.  This breaks doiwn to:

48 in refrigerator
25 in a display rack next to the fridge
22 elsewhere in the kitchen
7 in the front room
(this does not include 2 more bottles in the office)

The sauces range from a half-stale bottle of Tabasco, to Da Bomb, to a 
spectrum of CaJohn's sauces and some old Gales's hot cider sauce - one of 
which has a commemorative label from an Indiana hotluck, the actual 
"water-soaked label" of the Too Many Hot Sauce Blues.  (The Gale's, BTW, 
seems to have aged very nicely; it has a mellow flavor and a rich 
sweetness.)  There are unlabeled pilot batches of sauces from CaJohn, 
chipotles that Cameron gave me years ago, and an unmarked orange hab sauce 
that might be from him, too.  There's Charleston and Chesapeake, Bufalo, 
Bahama, and Brother Bru-Bru.

Actually that last bottle has had several other bottles emptied out into it 
for a while, most of them extracts that remind me of the original contents.  
(I call the overuse of extract sauce and its after-effects as "the Bru-Bru 
Boo-Boo.")

Most of the refrigerated hot sauces reside in a pair of peck baskets, which 
fit the shelf perfectly front-to-rear, and slide out like caddies.  Others 
are scattered in cabinets and on shelves.

"Scares me to say, somehow, some way,
every one of these gonna shine on my back door someday."

So, I really try to restrain myself when I see another hot sauce in a store. 
  On a typical grocery trip, I pass the main pepper sauce display without 
touching anything (also sometimes thinking, "got that, got that, got 
that...)  Yet sometimes I'll get a chance at an unusual sauce, and jump at 
it.  Then there are the temptations of salvage items at places like TJ Maxx 
and Big Lots.  I like to wander ethnic groceries and buy pepper products 
whose labels I can't read.  And sometimes I'll haul off and fill a spare 
woozy bottle with something freshly made.

I think this could be called "an established pattern of behavior" here.

- A



I go down to the store,
but I can't buy no more.
I don't have an inch left
in that sagging fridge door.

Too many hot sauce blues,
so many ways to light my fuse.
Scares me to say,
some how some way,
every one of these gonna shine
on my back door some day.

This one's kinda settled,
this one tastes like metal.
What was this old water-soaked soaked label?
I forget - ugh!

This one I stored,
this one I ignored.
Here's a sticker saying
"I Support President Ford!"

Too many hot sauce blues,
I got the door open, trying to choose.
Trying to summon my will,
as I run up the bill.
Patting myself on the back
for every little bottle I kill.

Those wings got a coating,
my tacos are floating.
Playing with beans in a deep bowl of sauce,
thinking of boating.

Pour another one dry,
with each dinner I fry.
Take one to the office,
sit in the lunchroom, and cry.

Too many hot sauce blues,
So many troubles I gotta lose.
Folks think I'm insane
as I go through my pain.
But I know deep inside,
I can't change.




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