Are you more of a Tabasco person, or are the spicy chili peppers of Southeast Asia the ones that get your mouth watering? Should hotness be combined with salty flavors or rather sweet ones? Whatever you believe and whatever your preferences, if you are one of those people who feels that “spicy” is never quite spicy enough, National Hot Sauce Day is the perfect day for you!
Humans started using chili peppers and other such spices thousands of years ago, with many historians believing that chili peppers were one of the earliest plants harvested by humans. Back in this era, historians believe the recipe was a simple mixture of peppers and water mixed into a liquid or thick paste.
In South and Central America, there is evidence of chili peppers being used for cooking as early as 6,000 years ago, but they did not reach Europe until the 16th century when Portuguese and Spanish explorers began sending all sorts of unusual foods from the New World back home.
The first hot sauce to be available in a bottle appeared in shops in the state of Massachusetts in the year 1807, and then suddenly, hot sauce was everywhere and being added to everything. Tabasco sauce is one of the earliest brands to have come into existence that still exists today, being bottled and sold for the first time in 1868.
Today’s recipes contain a wide variety of peppers, and many food enthusiasts argue passionately about which pepper makes the best sauce. Some of the most commonly used peppers are jalapeños, reapers, Thai chilies, cayenne peppers, serranos, and ghost peppers. The hottest pepper in the world is often considered to be the Carolina Reaper, with a Scoville rating of 2,000,000 (the average jalapeno pepper ranking at only 3,500 Scoville Heat Units)!
