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Austin
in August: Judging at the Austin Chronicle Hot Sauce Competition
How much
do I like hot and spicy food?
Well,
last August, I stood at high noon under the Texas sun in Austin's
dusty Waterloo Park to sample hot sauces with nicknames like "Agent
Orange."
My sweat
permeated my t-shirt past all possibility of ever wearing it again.
And I
downed 6 Pepto Bismol tablets to prepare myself for taste-testing
more than 150 home-made or chef-styled hot sauces.
The 12th
Annual Austin Chronicle Hot Sauce competition draws hundreds of hot
sauce contenders from across the state.
A team
of preliminary judges go through and sample ALL the hot sauces to
cut out those deemed too hot for human consumption...
Here's
a typical reaction:
Then
the celebrity chef judges get to choose the best of the best.
Guess
which team of judges I joined... 
Homemade
salsas and restaurant table sauces dominated the entries. Red, green
and "special variety" (think of ginger-habanero mole) were
the defining categories.
What
lures these contestants, submitting sauce samples in containers that
range from old cottage cheese tubs to PET glasses sealed with plastic
wrap and rubber bands?
Perhaps,
it's the cachet that winners might someday find face-out shelf space
near Frank's or Tabasco in the ever-engorged hot sauce section of
the local supermarket shrine, the Central Market.
After
all, hot sauce classics such as Tejas Tears, Lava Foods, Winston's
Hot Pepper Sauce, St. Peppers Hot Sauce, and several others, also
exhibit at the fest.
Featured
beers include the Live Oak Brewing Co., Shiner Bock, Lone Star and
Tecate.
I stuck
with Shiner Bock through samplings of sauces dubbed "Diaper Pail,"
"Peppers in Phlegm" and "EPA Extra Special Sauce"
(requires a Federal permit to dispose of it properly).
We judged
the hot sauces based on appearance, aroma and taste. That is, if there
were any taste buds left after the first scorching swallow.
"Oh
my," said fellow prelim judge, June Naylor, wincing as she opened
a container. "That smells like a porta-potty after a three-day
festival."
Admission
to the Hot Sauce Festival consists of two non-perishable food items,
as the searing shindig is also a benefit for the Capital Area Food
Bank.
"By
1999, the Austin Chronicle Hot Sauce Festival had risen to the status
of a defining civic event, on a par with such classics as the Luling
Watermelon Thump, the Gilmore Yamboree, the FireAnt Festival in Marshall,
or the Peanut Festival in Gorman," claims head judge and original
organizer, Robb Walsh.
Give
that man a beer.
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