For three days every year, this place is hell’s kitchen.
The 10th annual Fiery Foods Show smoked out the Albuquerque convention center the first weekend of this month with the threat of sweat, blazes and even death from 260 exhibitors showing off a collection of condiments with names ranging from Third Degree Burn, Brain Damage and Red Dragons Breath to Sudden Death and Peaches & Screams.
The crowd of 20,000 buyers, distributors and a curious public sampled more than just sauce. Also fired up were chocolate truffles, pistachios, cheese snacks, pickles and jellies.
Sure, it’s a horror show for those who prefer their picante sauce extra-mild. But for the hardcore folks who like food that packs heat, the show is the best place to sample what’s new in the hot food world as well as revisit classics, such as the display from Tabasco.
This year, the offerings reflected trends seen throughout the food industry: roasted ingredients, such as garlic, corn and peppers, and labels touting organic and fat-free products. And there’s a market ready for them.
“There are a number of reasons for the popularity of hot foods,” said Dave DeWitt, founder of the show and Fiery Foods magazine as well as the author of numerous books on chilies and spicy foods.
“There’s a sophistication of American diners. They finally understood that this is not always going to kill you in terms of burning our mouth out. And I think immigration has had a lot to do with it. In the early century immigrants came from Europe and eastern Europe where the food was bland, but more recent immigrants are Asian or come from South America, where they are used to spiced meals.”
But although it appears to be a growing segment of the industry–the first year of the show attracted just 37 exhibitors, and supermarket sales of hot sauces have increased 10 percent per year for the last decade, according to DeWitt–it’s a hard market to track.
Many of the products are sold through specialty food retailers, gift shops and natural food stores, which aren’t monitored by the national data system to which supermarkets contribute. DeWitt said there are “four to five thousand hot sauces out there” although many of them are produced in relatively small batches.
That’s the core of the hot foods business–not major players such as Pace and Tabasco, but independent enthusiasts who have turned their tastes into trade.
Which explains the presence of Skippy Sanchez, an electrician from Toronto who came early to Albuquerque to attend the College of Chile Knowledge, a two-day marketing seminar for newcomers to the industry.
“You can’t get a decent hot sauce in Canada,” Sanchez grumbled. “I had to make my own. I used to cook food so hot that no one could eat it except me.”
Eight months ago, the 31-year-old vegetarian went into business with a partner to create Electric Pepper and began producing cases of 5-ounce bottles of his secret sauce. Sales have been limited so far to specialty food shops and health food stores in Toronto. “I’m looking to get 15 or 20 more stores and start hooking up with restaurants to do promotions,” Sanchez said.
Closer to home is Lombard-based Mark Clark Foods, makers of City Slicker salsa, rubs and stews.
“It was a hobby,” said co-owner Mark Fackler, at the show for the second year with partner Kevin Clark. “It looks like most of the people didn’t get into it for the money.”
Although both men have full-time jobs, taking this hobby all the way has its appeal.
“This is one industry that’s really friendly,” Clark said. “A lot of these people have been showing us around and how to get started.”
An older hand (since 1995) at the show were the makers of Blair’s Sudden Death sauce, whose booth was bordered by yellow safety cones topped with flashing lights and a long ribbon of “Caution” police tape. This product, distilled from a mash of habaneros and cayenne peppers, was so blistering that samples were doled out on a toothpick instead of the usual tortilla chip. Just a dot of the stuff was enough to turn your tongue into a useless hank of leather for hours. (Danise Coon, at a booth representing the chili pepper research program at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces, confided that she had tried the sauce and was very, very sorry.)
Blair’s used the show this year to introduce its Smokin’ Hot Pot: “the first sauce made with jalapenos and pure unrefined hemp seed oil.” The logo: “Don’t smoke the stuff!”
There’s a serious amount of lightheartedness at a show like this.
Harley-riding hot heads Melissa McBride, 37, and Steve Reed, 50, from Sturgis, Mich., got married here the second day of exhibits, drawn together by a love of hot foods and 360 pepper plants growing in their dining room.
The bride, dressed in a long white skirt, a crown of chili peppers and holding a wreath of the same, wed Reed (sporting a boutonniere of–guess!) promising to enter into marriage “with love, respect and a sense of humor.”
Standing before a judge wearing a hat printed with hot sauce labels and framed by the Mean Devil Woman Chili Sauce display behind him, it was hard to tell whether the tear in McBride’s eye was from emotion or the fumes from the heart-shaped chili cheesecake set out for the reception.
