Thursday, April 9, 2009
Restaurants / Travel Advisory At Carl's, The "H" Stands for "Hellacious"
Posted by Nicki Wood on Thu, Apr 9, 2009 at 10:23 AM
We were assembling a party for a long lost friend when there was an extended-family catastrophe that involved a trip to Dickson, which then coincided with last week's gullywasher. What floated out was 15 pounds of ribs from Carl's Perfect Pig and some of Carl's homemade hot sauce.
Now "hot" is a highly variable adjective like "cute" or "funny" -- what's funny to me is just weird to you. What's cute to you is vomitously saccharin to someone else. "Hot" to the chain restaurants usually means an extra shake of black pepper or a slice of jalapeno on the plate. Carl's hot sauce re-unites the meaning "hot" and the word "hot."
This is a 3-alarm hot sauce, blazed up to boiling with habanero. A jalapeno pepper is fruity and a serrano is full of flavor, but a habanero is just aggressively, relentlessly hot, like the rabid wolverine of the flavor world.
Those are fighting words, I know. So, defenders of Carl's, come out swinging and explain why this hot sauce should/shouldn't be banned.
Comments (4)
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If chile pepper is to be banned, my vote is for the jalapeno. That fruitiness is just kind of obnoxious.
Habaneros, on the other hand, are tasty, tasty goodness. To me, the proper animal analogy would be something that's as alluring as it is dangerous, like a cheetah on the prowl.
I really enjoy the heat of spicy food. The sensation as it expands out from the mouth, opening the sinuses along the way, is satisfying to me. It goes beyond mere taste--it's more of a full-body experience. I imagine that's what some people dislike about hot foods, but I love it.
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Last night we drove past BB's barbecue in Franklin on our way to one of the three retaurants we tried before getting a table -- has anyone had their 'cue?
I grew habaneros in the garden one year. Three little plants gave us several plastic Kroger bags full of the little misshapen goodies.
One of my friends would eat them whole, but they made him sweat so much he would only do it in the privacy of his own home and only when wrapped in a terry cloth bathrobe.
One day while I was at work, my wife put a batch up but, for some unexplained reason, refused to do more. I grabbed the knife and began to clean enough for a batch - neglecting the (cue macho music, please) rubber gloves I told her to wear, because I was tough and didn't need them.
The capsatian in peppers does help significantly with arthritis pain, but the chemical burns and inflammation take several days to subside.
