February 24, 2016

Don't You Know That Food Can Kill?

As always first, a fresh post at I Are Writer!, which contains some exciting news.

As for here, the newest thing here is the post title. I decided to take a break from the usual, since it's becoming increasingly clear to me that to keep using that particular post title would require renaming this blog, and frankly, I really don't want to do that.

So, today's post is about food that can kill, or at the very least maim. And what better place to buy that kind of food than at an off-price department/outlet store. Here in New England, we have a funky store called Ocean State Job Lot, which carries all kinds of very offbeat and in other stores, prohibitively expensive food items. What I mean by expensive is that you can buy Bob's Red Mill products at most grocery stores, and those stores, you will pay two arms and a leg for it. At Ocean State, that particular product line is usually 1/4 to 1/3 the cost, and they carry a ginormous line of that product.

However, while I buy their natural muesli cereal, I aim to talk about the stuff I love to buy, namely the condiments. I love exploring their condiment section, because they carry a truly funky line of mustards, hot sauces, salsas, salad dressings and pickles. Today, I would like to spotlight hot sauces and pickles.



As I've gotten older, I've expanded my tolerance for hot sauces. For example, I started with Tabasco brand hot sauces, then I progressed to Cholula hot sauces. Then, when those weren't quite doing it for me (I used them with great frequency with my tuna salad), I tried a local farmer's Habanero hot sauce. But, I decided I needed to be more adventurous. So, I found a hot sauce made of this:



This hot sauce, called Ghost Pepper Hot Sauce, is made by the Tropical Pepper Co. This hot sauce actually comes with a warning: More than one drop....is suicide. And believe you me, it is. I mistakenly put about five drops on a chili dog, and I just about died. Why? Because the one thing that could kill the pain, milk, I cannot drink. The pain lasted a good twenty minutes.

In regards to pickles, I go by the same philosphy: the stranger the better. In this case, I found a large jar of pickles called Harold's Texicun Gormay Pickuls (yes, that is the exact wording on the label). It had one of two boxes checked off: purdy hot. These pickles are absolutely brutal. Produced by Conscious Choice Foods out of Dallas, in addition to the usual ingredients that go into a good pickle, they also added garlic and red chili peppers to the mix. So we die whenever we eat one at lunch.

So my friends, I hope you enjoyed this little food facet of yours truly, because as we gotten older, some of things we disliked while young, we now have no problem in exploring. And, a question to you would be this: what kind of strange hot foods do you like?

(c) 2016 BOOKS BY G.B. MILLER. All Rights Reserved.

20 comments:

  1. OMG, how are you still even alive? I cannot eat anything that hot or spicy without scorching my esophagus and suffering the torments of the acid reflux damned. I ate a handful of wasabi peas once and my stomach shut down in shock for two days.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I've grown quite accustomed to eating hot/spicy foods like that. It's the every day items that do the acid reflux. I did suffer some linger side effects for a day or so after eating that much ghost pepper sauce.

      Delete
  2. Back in my "By golly, I'm married to a Texan!" misspent youth I would eat whatever hot was put on the table just to prove I could tough it out. I toughed out the Texan too. Now that I have regained my sanity, I try to avoid those things, unless, of course, it is served with a large plate of authentic Mexican food.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I did not get accustomed to eating stuff like that until I was in my late 20's. Nowadays, I try to pump up my (to me) bland lunches and suppers with some various hot/spicy condiments.

      Delete
  3. Someone gave me a bottle of ghost pepper sauce. While I like hot food, I'll probably never open that bottle.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Very smart man. It may take me about a year or more to use up that one bottle of sauce, simply because I intend to follow the warning on the bottle. Once that bottle is done, it will never darken my refrigerator again. I'll stick with habanero and chipotle and jalapeno as my go to sauces.

      Delete
  4. Never had a ghost pepper. Not directly anyway. I do like me some hot sauce though

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Up until I bought this sauce, the closest I came to a ghost pepper were some YouTube videos. I'll still enjoy the hot sauces those, 'cause ya gotta pep up those means somehow.

      Delete
  5. My stomach is burning just thinking about it.

    ReplyDelete
  6. My brother in law loves extreme hot sauce - me, not so much. :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I normally don't do extreme, if only because I like to be able to taste other food in the process. Ghost peppers have always intrigued me, so I thought this would be the best of both worlds.

      Delete
  7. Funny how I have gone from someone who could not stand spicy food to someone who puts chillies in almost everything now. :-)

    Greetings from London.

    ReplyDelete
  8. I don't even like black pepper. You can keep your Gormay Pickuls. I don't want any.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'm don't even like black pepper either. I've used crushed red pepper from time to time though.

      Delete
  9. I've been suffering from acid reflux so eating spicy is difficult for me to do. But I do like spicy. One of my favourite condiments is red pepper flakes. But I also have a lot of asian friends and they have introduced me to some brutal hot foods. I partake of them, but don't usually like it so hot, it burns my mouth and I can't taste any other food.
    So interesting to see such a young child eat such hot peppers. have you ever done the Buffalo Wild Wings challenge? My friend did that one and ate all 10 blazing wings no problem. The staff was truly amazed.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I probably could but I would probably pay a severe penalty in the process. I normally don't suffer from acid reflux (1st bout in about 20 years or so) nor heartburn (got my sugars under control), so eating this kind of stuff isn't that much of a problem for me.

      Delete
  10. Like Debra I suffer from acid reflux so I tend to avoid anything incredibly spicy, I quite like it though but don't want to spend the rest of the night belching up hot gas. :D

    ReplyDelete

These days, the written word is to die for, so please leave a comment that shows me and everyone else the real you. All kinds of verbiage will be cheerfully accepted in the spirit it was written.