Poor Richard’s Almanac

It’s me, Richard Saunders of Poor Richard’s Almanac fame, here today to talk about the 13th Chile Pepper Food Festival, being held this weekend at the tiny hamlet of Bowers, Pennsylvania. Our friend Ben and Silence Dogood met me at the festival yesterday afternoon, and we were joined by our friends Rudy and Rob, as well as Rob’s son, to enjoy the day and take in the sights.

Silence pointed out that the chiles weren’t the only things that were hot, as she wilted in the heat and humidity that signalled the imminent arrival of Hurricane Hanna on our collective doorstep. But the day was bright, the crowd was cheerful, and the air was redolent with the delicious scents of everything from pulled pork and chile chowder to sweet potato fries (a Ben and Silence favorite) and hot pepper fudge.

Silence and our friend Ben were in pointed contrast to the rest of our group, since Ben was festively attired in a tasteful (he kept telling us) Hawai’ian shirt and chile pepper festival cap, and Silence was wearing a chile-colored tee-shirt, long paisley skirt with chile-red highlights, blinding chile necklace from last year’s festival, and (after making a beeline to the booth that was offering temporary tattoos for a dollar), a bright red-and-green chile tattoo on her upper right arm. However, they blended right into the festive crowd, most of whom were sporting chile shirts, bandannas, jewelry, hats, and tattoos both temporary and permanent. It felt as if we were attending a Jimmy Buffett concert where the confused crowd thought they were supposed to be chileheads rather than parrotheads. One hapless soul, hawking chile peanut brittle, was dressed as a giant jalapeno; we were tempted to take contributions to buy him a bottomless glass of iced tea and an ice pack. 

Speaking of iced tea, since the price of admission was a very modest $2 a head (with free parking), we had plenty of pocket change and were all dying of thirst from the heat, so we raced off to the booths that served our respective beverage choices: iced tea, fresh-squeezed lemonade, mango smoothies, Diet Coke (teens are teens), and—Silence indulging in a bit of nostalgia—a grape soda from the Kutztown Bottling Works (www.kutztownbottlingworks.com), which makes all kinds of cool retro sodas, from birch beer and sarsaparilla to orange cream, in the nearby town of Kutztown. Then we all drifted off to enjoy some shopping and live music.

Our first stop was the Meadow View Farm stand, where our chile-growing hero, James Weaver, had an incredible array of fresh hot peppers and heirloom tomatoes for sale. (You could also take a horse-drawn wagon ride to his nearby farm and pick your own.) Silence oohed and aahed over the colors and textures of the hot peppers—her favorites this year are ‘Lemon Drop’ and ‘Chocolate’ habaneros—but of course she didn’t buy any, being a Scoville sissy. (For all you chile neophytes out there, the hotness of peppers is measured in Scoville units, with jalapenos weighing in at 2,500 to 5,000; habaneros, up to 500,000; and the hottest pepper of all, the ‘Bhut Jolokia’, tipping the Scoville scale at a whopping 1,250,000 Scoville units.) In case you’re wondering why Jim Weaver is one of our heroes, read our earlier posts, “Scotch bonnets and Dutchy gunpowder” and “Pepper festival alert.”

I didn’t buy any of the Weavers’ fabulous fresh chiles, either, since I’m growing many of my own (thanks to Meadow View transplants), including ‘Lemon Drop’, ‘Chocolate Habanero’, ‘Devil’s Tongue’, ‘Biker Billy’, and the fabled ‘Bhut Jolokia’ itself. (I gained immediate legendary status at the festival when Silence revealed to various vendors that I’d actually eaten an entire ‘Bhut Jolokia’ pepper fresh from the plant and my eyes hadn’t even watered. I guess I’d better relish my five minutes of fame as the Sultan of Scoville Units.)

But I did, of course, succumb to the hot sauces. The names of these sauces, as well as their embellishments, are as creative as any products I know, or for that matter, all the other products I know combined. It seems to be a point of honor among chile enthusiasts. Silence had devised her own custom blend of ground chiles for our friend Rob, dubbed Rob’s Emergency Room Special, which I thought was pretty good as names go. But the names and accoutrements of the (literally) hundreds of sauces at the Bowers Festival made our friend Rob’s blend pale. Endorphin Rush. Annihilation. Brain Drain (with an eraserlike hot pink brain on top of each bottle). Black Death. Don’t Be Cruel (featuring Elvis). Black Widow (with a black plastic spider). Liquid Magma. Hellfire (with a keychain skull). Voodoo (with a voodoo doll attached to each bottle).

I bought a bottle of Annihilation (“The Hottest Natural Sauce in the World”) from Torchbearer, a regional company located in Mechanicsburg, PA. Guess I’ll have to see which is hotter, Annihilation or the bottle of Jolokia Haze Sauce that our friend Ben and Silence surprised me with at the end of the festival. It’s made by Jeff’s Chile Spot of Downingtown, PA (www.ChileSpot.com), from the renowned ‘Bhut Jolokia’ peppers. Our friend Ben also bought a jar of Jeff’s Chile Spot’s Bread and Butter Jalapeno Pickles, after sampling them at the booth. Silence says they’ll have to do a taste-off between the Chile Spot pickles and their current favorites, Wickles hot sweet pickles, along with Silence’s own-made hot-sweet refrigerator pickles.

Silence and our friend Ben were also charmed by Torchbearer’s All Natural Honey Barbecue Sauce and their spicy All Natural #7 Sultry Sauce (www.torchbearersauce.com). Rob got a jar of Endless Mountains Mustard Co.’s It’s Gotta Bite! Garlic Jalapeno Mustard after sampling some at their booth (find them at www.itsgottabite.com or in Hallstead, PA). And, of course, Silence, Ben, Rudy, and the rest of us descended on our favorite salsa purveyor, Csigi Chili Sauce (www.csigichilisaucecom), to stock up on their mild and hot Roasted Onion Salsas and Scovie award-winning sauces, and to oogle their hand-dyed, hand-printed tee shirts. (Rob bought one in a luscious mustard color with a single jalapeno image in green and blue.) Csigi rocks!!! Rudy bought a jar of homemade jalapeno jam, which he informed Silence he wanted her to add to one of her famous Indian dal dishes. Silence managed to find some gorgeous local pickled chiles, and acquired a jar of Happy Hal’s Jalapeno Relish, made in Amish country, Lancaster, PA. Rob bought a big jar of Scorch Way Hot Salsa from North of the Border, and his son got a giant plate of fresh-made funnel cake (a regional specialty that only a really skinny kid would dare to eat). And I had to be pried away from the vendors who’d come all the way from Hatch, New Mexico, the chile capital of the U.S.

Then it was closing in on closing time. We left our friend Rudy eating a huge pulled pork sandwich with Schultz’s hot sauce, with a mango ice cream in reserve. Rob and his son departed to enjoy a local restaurant and a second viewing of “The Dark Knight.” Silence was muttering about getting home and making some squash casseroles, fruit chutney, and homemade pizza (needless to say, she wasn’t planning on serving them together!). As for me, I opted for more festival fair, roasted corn on the cob, barbecue, and a chunk of that chile fudge. And of course, I’m thinking about heading on over today for seconds!