Do you like your food much hotter than the average person? Then Andrew Webb has some advice for you…
I like chilli; a jalapeno, a dash of chipotle sauce or slices of bird’s-eye chilli on a Thai curry. Anything hotter though, and I’m in all sorts of bother internally. There are those who do like things hotter, much hotter. Welcome to the secret world of chilliheads.
In search of the sauce
Tim Murphy used to work for an engineering company, but when his son was born, he wrote his resignation later whilst still on paternity leave – a move which signalled the beginning of The Cambridge Chilli Sauce Co.
“I was good at growing plants, but couldn’t make a living out of that,” says Tim. “But I had a quarter of an acre and I also love hot sauces, so I started growing chillies.” It then took several months for him to refine both the recipes and the production process. “How we got from those early prototypes to where we are now is a total blur, there was a lot of trial and error involved.”
Tim is a big fan of using other local ingredients in his sauces. “We use cider vinegar in our recipes, and we’re lucky enough to get it from a local cider producer, Cromwell Cider, based in Hemingford Grey. If I can get it local, I will. Sugar comes from Bury St Edmunds and our onions and tomatoes are from within 40 miles of our doorstep.”
Tim believes there’s more to chilli than simply assaulting your digestive system with heat. “People who eat a lot of chilli, they might try the really hot American-style sauces, but pretty soon they get bored and start looking for flavour. So we have to diversify. Our mildest product, for example, is a raspberry and chilli jam. People try it and say ‘where’s the chilli?’ as it’s a good 15 seconds before the gentle heat comes through. It’s using chilli almost as a seasoning.” He also spends a lot of time being mindful of how a sauce is used. “When we make a product, we think about what people might eat it with. So that jelly is designed to go with pork; if it was super hot, you wouldn’t really get the taste of the pork.”
I think my food is lacking without it
Tim’s sauces and many others in the UK use tomato and onion as a base, while American sauces don’t tend to. US chilli bloggers who review UK sauces often find them perplexing. “Perhaps it’s because we have a lot of things like brown sauce and tomato ketchups that most UK producers use onion and tomatoes?” wonders Tim.
When I asked if he has a favourite, he said, “It’s got to be the smoked Scotch bonnet and pepper sauce. I think it’s the finest sauce I’ve ever made. Now every new sauce has to live up to that. It’s also the most labour intensive sauce. We have to smoke the red peppers and smoke the Scotch bonnets, that’s a two-day process, but it’s an incredibly popular sauce.”
As for why he’s a self-confessed chillihead, he replies with, “I just think my food is lacking when it doesn’t have it. In my fridge I have over 50 open sauces, I have my own shelf and space in the door. I’ll gear my meal around what sauce it goes best with. When I talk to fellow chilliheads their eyes light up, you can see them think, ‘so it’s not just me’!”
Tim’s keeping things steady in his plans for the future. “We don’t want to expand beyond what we’re doing. I don’t want to be stocked in supermarkets; they wouldn’t pay the price we’d have to charge them for a start. But more than that we like it as it is, it’s just me making the sauce. As crazy as it may sound, it’s not just about the money. I’m lucky enough to put my boy on the school bus in the morning and be here when he gets off. This business fits our lifestyle and a big factory unit doesn’t interest me,” he tells me. “It’s taken seven years to get to this stage. When we started we began with just £2000. A lot of companies start with the marketing, the labelling, the website and such, then they forget about the product! We’ve always concentrated on what’s in the bottle.”
Cambridge Cheese Company
Jade Thomas and her business partner David Wilshin manage the Cambridge Cheese Company on All Saints Passage, Cambridge. Here, amongst the stunning selection of artisanal cheeses, Italian olive oils and handmade chocolates, is a shelf containing their hot sauces.
As well as stocking a range of Tim’s products, they also have a fine collection of US sauces available. Many of the US labels feature skulls, coffins, flames and scatological names such as Ass Reaper and Colon Cleaner; one actually bears the phrase ‘hate in a bottle’. Others are more South American in tone, and feature Mexican imagery and ingredients.
So what’s the attraction of hot sauce? “It’s endorphins, you just get this sudden rush,” says Jade. “Key for me though, is a sauce made with real peppers that has flavour. CaJohns are my favourite US sauces; they don’t just use capsaicin extract, it’s all done with natural peppers. The trouble with the sauces made with extract is that all you get is heat,” says Jade. We start talking peppers, and she says, “Naga’s not my kind of chilli, it’s hot and peppery and gets you in the back of the throat. I’m more hot and fruity, think Habanero or moruga scorpion.”
Perched on the highest shelf sit two bottles of Mad Dog 357. If the sauce doesn’t make your eyes water, the cost will – £125 – and you have to sign a health and safety disclaimer when you buy it. “David tried a tiny amount of this on the very tip of a cocktail stick once and he had to go home, he said he felt like he’d been shot!” says Jade.
So is there a thriving chilli scene in Cambridgeshire? “I think so,” says Jade. “We sell loads of these sauces because most chilli sauces in supermarkets are just a bit insipid – to me, that’s not hot.”
Last man standing
If you’re a fan of hot sauces, chilli and competitive eating, you can take part in a chilli-eating contest held at Skylark Garden Centre in Wimblington, near March, on 18 June. Be warned though, chilli-eating competitions are not for the faint-hearted. The idea is simple; each contestant is presented with a chilli they must eat completely. In front of them is a glass of milk and often a bowl or bucket. Reaching for either of these results in disqualification. Things start off fairly mild, before rocketing up the Scoville scale like a shuttle launch. I’ve attended a few of these competitions over the years (as a spectator) and they’re great fun to watch. To register for a place, see the website.
The Scoville Scale
The ‘heat’ of chilli is measured in Scoville Heat Units, or SHUs, named after the American pharmacist Wilbur Scoville who invented it in 1912. What gives chillies their heat is the amount of capsaicin present. A red pepper has a SHU of zero, while the Carolina Reaper, which holds the current world record for the hottest chilli on the planet, comes in at between 1,400,000 and 2,200,000 SHUs. To put that into some sort of perspective that’s hotter than pepper spray (yes, it gets its name because its made with capsaicin). SHUs are not a truly accurate way to empirically measure spiciness, as a panel of tasting experts determines the results. Other variables such as cultivar, humidity and even soil condition mean that chillies from the same species can have slightly different ratings.
- Carolina Reaper 1,400,000-2,200,000
- Trinidad Scorpion 1,200,000-2,000,000
- Ghost Pepper 855,000-1,041,427
- Chocolate Habanero 425,000-577,000
- Red Savina Habanero 350,000-577,000
- Fatali 125,000-325,000
- Habanero 100,000-350,000
- Scotch Bonnet 100,000-350,000
- Thai Pepper 50,000-100,000
- Cayenne Pepper 30,000-50,000
- Tabasco Pepper 30,000-50,000
- Arbol 15,000-30,000
- Serrano Pepper 10,000-23,000
- Hungarian 5,000-10,000
- Jalapeno 2,500-8,000
- Poblano 1,000-1,500
- Anaheim 500-2,500
- Pepperoncini 100-500
- Bell Pepper 0
Speedy ‘n’ spicy
Another venue offering a chilli challenge is SmokeWorks on Free School Lane, Cambridge. The ‘University Chillenge’ saw teams of four people attempt to eat 32 chicken wings in the fastest time. They’re coated in a sauce made with the scorpion moruga chilli that ranks at an average of 1,200,000 SHUs. Their most recent event, the ‘Ultimate Chillenge’, saw contestants eat a chilli dog in Scotch bonnet sauce, 32 chicken wings coated in ghost chilli sauce and a scorpion chilli corn on the cob – ouch.
“We’ve had 30 people take part in this latest Chillenge,” says Jessica Donnithorne from SmokeWorks. “The best time so far was two minutes 18 seconds. Everyone who takes part gets their photo put up on our wall of flame/shame downstairs.” The latest Chillenge menu for the summer months was still being worked on at the time of writing so check the SmokeWorks website for details. One thing’s for sure, it’ll be spicy.
