IMPRESSIONS FROM THE 16th ANNUAL
NATIONAL FIERY-FOODS & BARBECUE SHOW          Page  1 of 2   Go to Page 2

MARCH 5-7, 2004

Photos and story by Harald Zoschke 

Once again, it was show time in Albuquerque - a nice excuse for a trip to New Mexico, the original Chile Pepper Country, and one of my favorite places.

While making hot sauce in Florida, we used to exhibit at the "hottest food show on earth" for a couple of years ourselves. Since 2001 though, we're running the first German hot shop, so my wife and business partner Renate and I are looking at the annual Fiery-Foods & Barbecue Show in buyers' shoes now. This is still the place to find new products for our business. And as always, we found (and ordered) a lot.

Here's the motto of this year's official Fiery-Foods & Barbecue Show T-Shirt......  

But besides sauce, there was more product diversity than ever at the 2004 show. About 240 booths had the latest from the world of heat and barbecue.

So here's my 2004 sampling - just a small selection of the many interesting people and products we encountered on our annual quest for fire. Enjoy!

  As mentioned, there was so much more at the show than just hot sauce. Sunny's Holiday Foods for example had a whole line of "hot" instant drink mixes. Our favorites of the many that we sampled at Carrie and Sunny Brewster's booth were "Hot Chocolate with Green Chili" and "Sunshine Sweet Tea" with jalapeno chile and natural cinnamon. 

  New cool, uhm, hot products included non-food items as as well. Cheryl and Donald MacDougall of CMC Industries showed their line of chile ceramics, including chile pepper wall clocks and very nice chile-decorated terraotta wine coolers.

Fofo Voltaire of Caribbean Temptation, Inc. offered their Scovie-Award-winning Jerk Seasoning, as well as Caribbean Dip mixes and  some interesting instant spicy lemonades. Since Fofo was a little photo-shy (but why?), her assistant is filling in here. By the way, Fofo was a guest chef at last years' show - see her Coconut Chicken with Yam Chips recipe here.  

 Did you know there's actually a chile pepper variety out there that's officially named Sport Pepper? Sports bars around Chicago serve the pickled green pods on hot dogs. Here's fiery-foods pioneer John Reeves of Garden Row Foods with a jar of this tasty condiment. Sports Peppers are just one of the many "hot" food products they're selling. Garden Row became famous for  one of the industry's hot sauce classics, "Endorphin Rush."

Tasty: Pickled Sport Peppers   

 While on the subject of unusual
chiles - Rocoto from Peru is known for its distinctive flavor, cutting heat and black seeds.

Peruvian father and son team Julio A. Werner and Julio R. Werner of 2Hot Rocoto Sauce proudly presented their hot sauce made from these peppers. It is made without vinegar, using ascorbic acid instead (Vitamin C.)
 That's the first rocoto sauce I've seen, and I liked it a lot. (Renate also liked the two sunnyboys from Peru a lot.)    

 Peru was not the only South American country with local pepper products at the show. Rolando Martin of Montenegro Comércio Importacao & Exportacao Ltda. promoted Brazilian Bird's Eye chiles as well as pink peppercorns. Those Brazilian birdies are HOT! I tasted a dried pod, and while on fire, Rolando told me the heat test came out at 135,000 Scoville units. Nice!     

Ready for more unusual chile pepper stuff?
The Chile Pepper Institute of the New Mexico State University displayed a yet unnamed variety they developed - not just the leaves are variegated here, but the pods as well. Those CPI folks do some amazing things with chiles, and they still do it just the old-fashioned way, no GMO hi-tech involved. But why in the world breed a chile with stripes? Just for the looks - it is a so-called ornamental variety (those are edible, too, though.)     

 A more familiar chile, the Sandia from Southern New Mexico, goes into 505 Southwestern's organic chile salsas. According to the company, 505 has the only green chile sauce in the world that's Certified Organic. Lucie and Berney were busy handing out salsa samples, but the Albuquerque-based company also makes a tasty enchilada sauce. After the show we had a chance to tour their impressive, fully automated factory. Wonder what 505 means? It's the area code for New Mexico!

Chantal of D'Larenti International introduced Lizano Salsa, a product that her company imports from Costa Rica. According to Chantal, this is "the original Costa Rican sauce."     

 Now for a sweet surprise. My birthday is early March, and that's true for exhibitor Craig Barton of Austin Spice Company and Guest Chef Jim Heywood (Culinary Institute of America) as well. So our common fate was celebrating this commemorative day at the Fiery Foods & Barbecue Show. All three of us were thrilled when Dave DeWitt sent congrats over the PA system and announced a birthday cake at the Sunbelt Shows booth!

Created with TLC by the Candy Lady, the yummy cake had "Happy Birthday Jim, Craig & Harald" written on top and was decorated with sweet chiles from her store.

Here's Hot Shots' Cathy Lutes and me enjoying some of that delicious cake. Many thanks to the thoughtful Sunbelt folks and to The Candy Lady :-)   

 Debbie Ball a.k.a. The Candy Lady also had a booth, and everybody liked her chile pepper suckers. Besides chile themed sweets, she also had a different kind of suckers and chocolates hidden underneath the table. Let's put it this way: When in Albuquerque, be sure to see her store in Old Town, and check out the room that has a "Must be 18 or older to enter" sign at the entrance...

"Hot" Lollipop by The Candy Lady   

 Empowered by snacking on the commemorative cake, on with the show. Fresh Herb Co. had some amazing decorative pickled chiles in fancy bottles for sale. Almost too precious to open!

Also very decorative were the beautiful Ceramic Chile Decorations, made and presented by the company that goes just by this name. Handcrafted by Stephanie (pictured here) and Perla.   

As every year, the Fiery-Foods & Barbecue Show received a lot of media attention, and at any time, there was at least one TV crew on the floor. The entertaining reports could be seen on the evening news later on.   

 This year's official show poster was created and sponsored by the New Mexico Chile Company, and it was particularly beautiful.

The poster was available at the New Mexico Chile Company booth, and it found many friends. So did the award-winning tasty "Coyote Trail" sauces, made with chiles from the Hatch Valley in Southern New Mexico.    

Get the show poster at their
Web Site while supplies last.

 While on the subject of print media, "Insane Dave" of Dave's Gourmet proudly presented his "Crazy from the Heat" cookbook, published by Ten Speed Press.  Insane Dave, of course, is a living legend - he's the guy who started the "superhot" sauce craze more than ten years ago.

Proud was also the author of this report, as he contributed the cover photo that he took at a previous Fiery-Foods & Barbecue Show.   

For a book review, see Media Meltdown Vol 24

  It is those "crazy" people that make our  fiery-foods industry so special. Steve Famulari and Craig Chapman from Albuquerque fit right into this category. Stevie calls herself "Environmental Artist" - using sugar frosting and sweets, she creates edible landscapes for all sorts of events. Her company name, Sugart, stands for "Sugar" and "Art." She also makes "Chocolate del Diablo," spiced up with red and green chile.

In his "real life," Craig is a loan officer, but his passion is creating chile art. His signature work: painted hub caps, decorated with chiles. Gee, four of those would look sharp on my Porsche Cayenne. Heck, I don't have a Porsche...   

 More art was on display at Sweetwater Presentations' booth, also from Albuquerque. Randy Stracener does a great job enhancing  beautiful Southwestern paintings with his creative framing. Had to watch my wallet!

Almost a piece of art is this ristra, made fom christmas lights and chile pepper lightcovers, that someone used for booth decoration.   

 Back to the sauce business. When it comes to hot sauce marketing, it is hard to beat Hot Sauce Harry's. Just recently, Bob Harris (the guy to the right - the dork behind the bike pic, that's me) got his habanero hot sauce in a colorful custom counter top display into every store in the Advance Auto Parts chain, second largest chain of its kind in the USA. Bob spots the most unusual market niches,  like hunters, targeted with his Duck Stamp collector's sauce.

Also from Hot Sauce Harry's, here's a good example how an inexpensive little gimmick like a cook's hat can enhance a product, making it stick out of the bottle crowd on the shelf.   

Whew, such a great show can really wear you out! Here's Big Dave, getting a massage after a long day of yelling and selling at his Hot Shots booth. Waterfalls by Santiago has been offering this soothing service at almost every Fiery-Foods Show, and Dave was kind enough to buy me a massage, too, as a birthday gift. Much appreciated, Dave! Now I'm ready for more show floor roaming.   

So what are you waiting
for?! There's more cool,
uhm, hot stuff on ...

Page Two!