Adventures in Hot Sauce
Margaret is a wonderful chef/cook. She is modest about it and my bragging on her as it makes her uncomfortable, but know this, she is really good. This leads to a recent questionable culinary experience which was ultimately my fault (surprise!) and was inadvertently caused by our friends. Several wives went “birding” in Cape May for a few days, leaving their husbands alone at home and at seemingly loose ends. Margaret does not go on these women adventures. She likes watching birds but not enough for a 4-hour drive and 3 days of avian observations, although they do dine out and shop.
The ladies left on a Thursday. I went to lunch with the boys, a very long lunch at a local craft beer mecca, the Jam Room on Friday. The Jam Room motto is “Pouring The Soundtrack To Our Lives. We Live It, We Brew It!’. However, their t shirts and hoodies for sale just say, “Jam Room”. The Jam Room is quite large and has a small pub food counter for hamburgers, sandwich wraps, etc. One has a choice of lounge type seating on couches and chairs, or you can sit at high top tables with stools and, of course, a sizeable bar with a large selection of beers. Side note, they have wine. The choices are identified as “red or white”, and the wine is hidden behind the bar which serves you right if you go into a craft beer joint and order wine. Beer selections are seasonal and this day’s fare featured, among others, Jam Sesh #2 Bitter, Muddy Wooders Brown Ale, Southern Rock Lager, Undone Wheat Beer, Golden Ale Blonde (You can get a 64oz Growler Fill for $16.00), and Spiders From Marzen.. Flights are available or, if you are wondering about a beer, the bartender will give you a taste in a shot glass. A gigantic screen projects muted music videos on a continuous loop while the sound system blasts other rock music (they take requests). There is live music in the evenings but alas, it was lunch time and the “jam” begins after five. We ate our food, drank our beer and carried on our conversations while, for example, a video of Joan Jett was on the screen as the sound system played Dave Matthews. Two beers is my limit but the boys have impressive capacities, so we were there for a while. Lots of laughs, lots of discussions on various topics such as music (naturally), action movies with large body counts, organ recitals (medications and ailments), and the state of the world. When I finally got home, Margaret felt that the boys, those same guys who had just been imbibing and eating and laughing, were probably lonely in the absence of their wives, who would not be home until Sunday, and we should invite them over for “pizza and bourbon” on Saturday evening. It was a thoughtful suggestion, and I texted them an invite and everyone said “yes”.
I’ll note what may be an important difference between men and women. Having invited my friends for pizza and bourbon*, if it was up to me, I would feed them pizza and offer them a choice of bourbons with water, ice, or neat. That’s it. A woman, and Margaret is one, would not stop at pizza and bourbon. There would be a choice of cheeses, blackberries, raspberries, orange chocolate slices and appetizers before the pizza arrived. Clearly, women are much better at this than men. Clearly a coffee table with cheese, and fruits, and chocolate and appetizers is more attractive and welcoming than a coffee table with paper plates, napkins, a pizza cutter, and pizza boxes. Glasses of bourbon come with all offerings.
Margaret decided to make Cajun Meatballs as an appetizer. She has done this before when I invite my friends over for an evening of alcohol consumption. The meatballs are always well received because they are delicious. So, on Saturday afternoon, Margaret shopped for cheeses and fruits and Cajun Meatball ingredients. Then she spent hours making little Cajun meatballs. “I made them bite size this time.”, she said. There were a lot of them, and it took a while to get each meatball to what she felt was the proper size. Multiply by 25 and then cook and it took hours. The boys have impressive appetites. Finally, with the preparation and cooking done the aroma was inviting and filled the room. I asked to taste one. Margaret had already tried ½ of one. She said she had added some hot sauce to them so they would be extra spicy. I had one and it was hot. Note, I love hot. This one was the hot that occasionally comes out of your nose after you have chewed it. Delicious. And hot. I was curious about the hot sauce she used since I had tossed out my previous preferred hot sauce, Brother Bru Bru’s African Hot Pepper Sauce, when we emptied out the refrigerator prior to our wintering in Hilton Head. I didn’t think we had any more hot sauce. She said “It was in the pantry”. Uh oh, I had forgotten about the Smack My Ass and Call Me Sally hot sauce. “But that’s 10 years old” I blurted out. Seeing the look on her face I quickly backtracked to “ I’m not sure. I bought it years ago because it was called Smack My Ass and Call Me Sally and how often can you get food labeled Smack My Ass and Call Me Sally?” I had no intention using it. I just liked the name. I thought of it as a collector’s item. I stashed it in a back corner of a shelf in the pantry. It was unopened. “Years”? said Margaret, concern on her face. I really didn’t remember how long but it was at least five years and possibly closer to 10 …..7? but I really couldn’t remember. There was no expiration on date on a bottle of Smack My Ass and Call Me Sally. Possibly it had been eaten away. Concerned, about an unknown expiration date, Margaret began an internet quest for the shelf life of unopened hot sauce. Unfortunately, the answer was dicey and for us, inconclusive. Responses varied from site to site, but all agreed no more than 5 years. Most were around 3 years. Some narrowed it down to 3-5 years. 10 years was not only beyond but thinking back, how could I keep it in the pantry for 10 years? I really couldn’t remember when I had purchased it but it was during my hot sauce Scoville scale ** investigations quite a while ago. I tend to get interested in things. Did you know that January 16 is International Hot and Spicy Day? Smack My Ass and Call Me Sally has an 8,000 Schoville rating which is moderately hot for most people. “When in doubt, throw it out” according to a 19th century idiom. So, better not take a chance on poisoning our friends even though Margaret and I had tasted a couple of the meatballs ourselves. Canaries in a coal mine. But they were really good, as I’ve mentioned. Margaret insisted she was not upset. She was. Still insisting she was not upset, she casually took the bottle of Smack My Ass and Call Me Sally from my hands and tossed it into the trash.
The boys arrived and Margaret then volunteered to drive into town to get the pizza. She is a gift. While on her errand, we sampled bourbons from today’s selection of Knob Creek, Bulleit, Bib and Tucker, Makers Mark 46, and Johnny Fever (the name is a personal favorite for obvious reasons), while knoshing on the fruits and cheeses and chocolates. Bourbon pairs nicely with all of them. In fact, bourbon pairs nicely with bourbon. Single malt scotch pairs nicely with single malt but this was a bourbon night. Margaret and the pizza arrived. It was delicious. Bourbon pairs nicely with pizza. Also have some water available with it as you shouldn’t guzzle bourbon when you get thirsty while eating pizza. Only Margaret and I knew of the tragedy of the ancient bottle of Smack My Ass and Call me Sally. “Ignorance is bliss” wrote Thomas Gray in his 1743 poem, "Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College". I don’t think they had Smack My Ass and Call Me Sally back then.
The next day, after no deleterious effects to either of us during the night, not even heartburn, it was decided to throw away the delectable but possibly lethal Cajun Meatballs. Margaret still insisted she was not upset but I overheard her saying “hours” on the phone with my sister. I wanted to leave some of the meatballs out on the lawn for the wildlife to eat and see what would occur via our Ring camera, but I was overruled.
I have since re-ordered Brother Bru Bru’s African Hot Pepper Sauce for future Cajun Meatballs if needed. Brother Bru Bru’s (no sodium or sugar), also goes well with Margaret’s Turkey Chili, my scrambled eggs and other dishes you wish to spice up. You can still purchase Smack My Ass and Call Me Sally online. As for our antique bottle of Smack My Ass and Call Me Sally, some future archeologist may dig up that bottle that we tossed out buried during a deep underground excavation, take it to the lab, possibly taste it, find it to still be good and delicious and hot and add it to Cajun Meatballs.
Cajun Appetizer Meatballs
1 pound lean ground beef
1 ½ tsp. Hot pepper sauce
2 tbsp. cajun seasoning
1 tbsp. Worcestershire sauce
1 tbsp. dried parsley
¼ cup finely chopped onion
¼ cup fresh breadcrumbs
1/4 cup milk
1 egg
½ cup bbq sauce
½ cup peach preserves
1. Preheat oven to 350. Lightly grease a medium baking sheet.
2. In large bowl, mix ground beef through egg.
3. Form mixture into golf ball size meatballs. Put on prepared baking sheet. Bake for 30-40 minutes.
4. In small bowl, combine BBQ sauce and peach preserves.
5. When meatballs are done, place in serving dish and cover with bbq mixture. Toss to coat.
*Bourbon is named after the French Dynastic House of Bourbon - Kings of France from 1589 to 1792 and from 1814 to 1830 and probably named for Bourbon Street in New Orleans, although there is a Bourbon County in Kentucky. According of Bourbon historian, Michael Veach, modern bourbon’s origins can be attributed to two French brothers who moved to Louisville, Kentucky, in the 19th century. They started shipping whiskey from Kentucky distillers down the Ohio River to New Orleans in charred oak barrels. By the time it arrived in New Orleans, it had started to develop that deep color and oaky flavor bourbon still boasts today.
**Wilbur Scoville, a pharmacologist, born in Bridgeport, Ct. invented the Scoville scale in 1912 to measure the pungency of peppers and chilies, generally related to their capsaicin content. To establish a chili pepper’s rating, Scoville would prepare it in a solution, which was then tested by five people with strong stomachs and possibly copious amounts of antacid. He increased its dilution until the sensation of heat disappeared. The score on the scale represents the level of dilution required for the sensation of heat to disappear completely. The amount of heat is expressed in Scoville Heat Units (SHU), which represent the number of times the concentration of capsaicin needs to be diluted before it’s no longer detectable. For example, the jalapeno pepper is measured at 2,000-8,000 SHUs, which means it took 2,000-8,000 dilutions for that to happen. Wilbur clearly had a lot of time on his hands. The scale starts at 0 SHUs with the bell pepper, which has no capsaicin compounds, to 3.2 million SHUs with Pepper X.
https://www.nist.gov/how-do-you-measure-it/how-do-you-measure-heat-pepper
