The arrival of fall usually means more time inside, often cooking up hearty, warming meals. One Durham Region man is trying to spice things up a little and offer your mouth one last fling with summer's heat.
Brad Ravanello , or “Shuggy”to his friends (a tribute to one of his favorite musicians, Shuggie Otis), has taken his love of hot peppers and turned it into a “growing” business: Shuggy's Hot and Salty Rocks.
Ravanello didn't exactly set out to create a line of gourmet condiments. Growing up in Cape Breton, he didn't have much of a taste for anything hotter or more exotic than ordinary black pepper and the occasional dash of Tabasco Sauce. Only when he began to travel and moved to metro Toronto did he become exposed to a wider variety of flavors and develop a taste for spicier offerings. As he points out, “the diversity of many communities has grown to include many more ethnic foods and spices, including hot peppers.”
As his love of spices developed, he experimented with more extremely hot peppers, some of which are decidedly not for the faint-of-heart. “It took a lot of practice to get to the point where heat was no longer thought of as painful, but pleasure,” he says...something that may still be an ongoing process, judging from his Youtube videos.
Although tasting volcanic peppers such as the Naga Morich (which rates over a million heat units on the Scoville Scale for rating peppers spicy heat; a typical jalapeno for comparison averages 5000) makes for memorable experiences and interesting conversation starters for the affable Dow Chemical employee, some years ago he realized his real joy was in growing them himself. Starting with only a few plants of common varieties like jalapenos and cayenne in his backyard, his garden has expanded in size and diversity each summer until this year he had some 80 different plants, including some of the hottest varieties known. Among his crop, the Morich and the colorfully-named Carolina Reaper, which he hasn't yet sampled. “I'll have to work myself up for that one. The Trinidad Moruga Scorpion almost did me in last year.”
Popping a pepper named for a scorpion or the Grim Reaper might not exactly be fun for most people. In fact, it rather brings to mind the old Monty Python sketch with the “Spring Surprise” chocolate. A jovial confectioner describes how when one pops one of the candies in their mouth, two steel bolts pop out and pierce both cheeks, prompting a cop questioning him to ask “but where's the pleasure in that?”. While no springs will pop out of super-hot peppers, the effect may be no less painful for the average eater. Thankfully though, Shuggy's Hot and Salty Rocks offer up all the best of the peppers- rich, spicy flavors without the cheek-piercing pain!
The idea came to him one summer when he had actually grown too many peppers. As he describes it, the spices began as “an accident of necessity. Not wanting them all to go to waste, I had to come up with a way to preserve them. Pickling them took too long, freezing took up too much space. Then I thought 'they preserve fish in salt back home, so why not peppers? Although the process has evolved since the first batch, it works.”
Indeed it does as an increasing number of diners are finding out. Shuggy takes his various peppers and blends them with salt and other spices and flavorings such as garlic, lemon, lime or paprika to make a tasty and healthy table spice. Today he offers six varieties, ranging from the relatively tame “Vitamin C” blend (with lemon added in) to the scorching “Venom” , made with small amounts of the Naga Morich and the Trinidad Moruga.
He and his wife Sheila use the spices at almost every meal: on eggs at breakfast, to spice up a boring sandwich at lunch, on steaks or in soup at dinner. “We even have it on chocolate,” he notes, so dessert need not be left out of the fun!
Regular customer Barron Von Slyke concurs. “I pretty much replace regular salt with Shuggy salt now...I have it in a salt grinder. A nice fine grind is yummy on veggies, corn on the cob, etc.”
In the future, Ravanello hopes his Hot and Salty Rocks will continue to grow as stealthily as a jalapeno in a sunny greenhouse. “I love peppers, I love money,” he laughs, “then again, I love growing...” so he never wants the business to take off so much that he ends up removed from its “roots”. That wish may come true. His spices are tasty and high-quality and enter the market at a time when interest in spicy peppers is, well, “hot.”
Increasingly, the public is becoming aware of the health benefits they serve up. Capsaicin, found in hot peppers (more in the hotter types), is an excellent antioxidant and increases metabolism, aids in weight loss, can alleviate headaches, prevent sinus infections and has been suggested to help ward off cancer, particularly prostate. They're also high in Vitamins C and A. No wonder Oprah Winfrey promotes them on her website as a “Superfood”.
In an age when North Americans are appreciating Asian and Caribbean cuisine and hot pepper fan Guy Fieri is omnipresent on the Food Network with his “Flavortown” philosophy of eclectic and spicy foods, the time is right for Shuggy's Hot and Salty Rocks. I bet Fieri would find them “Off the Hook!”
To get your own jar of the pepper spices, or more information, check out www.shuggys.ca
Shuggy with a big mouthful of flavor!
Brad Ravanello , or “Shuggy”to his friends (a tribute to one of his favorite musicians, Shuggie Otis), has taken his love of hot peppers and turned it into a “growing” business: Shuggy's Hot and Salty Rocks.
Ravanello didn't exactly set out to create a line of gourmet condiments. Growing up in Cape Breton, he didn't have much of a taste for anything hotter or more exotic than ordinary black pepper and the occasional dash of Tabasco Sauce. Only when he began to travel and moved to metro Toronto did he become exposed to a wider variety of flavors and develop a taste for spicier offerings. As he points out, “the diversity of many communities has grown to include many more ethnic foods and spices, including hot peppers.”
As his love of spices developed, he experimented with more extremely hot peppers, some of which are decidedly not for the faint-of-heart. “It took a lot of practice to get to the point where heat was no longer thought of as painful, but pleasure,” he says...something that may still be an ongoing process, judging from his Youtube videos.
Although tasting volcanic peppers such as the Naga Morich (which rates over a million heat units on the Scoville Scale for rating peppers spicy heat; a typical jalapeno for comparison averages 5000) makes for memorable experiences and interesting conversation starters for the affable Dow Chemical employee, some years ago he realized his real joy was in growing them himself. Starting with only a few plants of common varieties like jalapenos and cayenne in his backyard, his garden has expanded in size and diversity each summer until this year he had some 80 different plants, including some of the hottest varieties known. Among his crop, the Morich and the colorfully-named Carolina Reaper, which he hasn't yet sampled. “I'll have to work myself up for that one. The Trinidad Moruga Scorpion almost did me in last year.”
Popping a pepper named for a scorpion or the Grim Reaper might not exactly be fun for most people. In fact, it rather brings to mind the old Monty Python sketch with the “Spring Surprise” chocolate. A jovial confectioner describes how when one pops one of the candies in their mouth, two steel bolts pop out and pierce both cheeks, prompting a cop questioning him to ask “but where's the pleasure in that?”. While no springs will pop out of super-hot peppers, the effect may be no less painful for the average eater. Thankfully though, Shuggy's Hot and Salty Rocks offer up all the best of the peppers- rich, spicy flavors without the cheek-piercing pain!
The idea came to him one summer when he had actually grown too many peppers. As he describes it, the spices began as “an accident of necessity. Not wanting them all to go to waste, I had to come up with a way to preserve them. Pickling them took too long, freezing took up too much space. Then I thought 'they preserve fish in salt back home, so why not peppers? Although the process has evolved since the first batch, it works.”
Indeed it does as an increasing number of diners are finding out. Shuggy takes his various peppers and blends them with salt and other spices and flavorings such as garlic, lemon, lime or paprika to make a tasty and healthy table spice. Today he offers six varieties, ranging from the relatively tame “Vitamin C” blend (with lemon added in) to the scorching “Venom” , made with small amounts of the Naga Morich and the Trinidad Moruga.
He and his wife Sheila use the spices at almost every meal: on eggs at breakfast, to spice up a boring sandwich at lunch, on steaks or in soup at dinner. “We even have it on chocolate,” he notes, so dessert need not be left out of the fun!
Regular customer Barron Von Slyke concurs. “I pretty much replace regular salt with Shuggy salt now...I have it in a salt grinder. A nice fine grind is yummy on veggies, corn on the cob, etc.”
In the future, Ravanello hopes his Hot and Salty Rocks will continue to grow as stealthily as a jalapeno in a sunny greenhouse. “I love peppers, I love money,” he laughs, “then again, I love growing...” so he never wants the business to take off so much that he ends up removed from its “roots”. That wish may come true. His spices are tasty and high-quality and enter the market at a time when interest in spicy peppers is, well, “hot.”
Increasingly, the public is becoming aware of the health benefits they serve up. Capsaicin, found in hot peppers (more in the hotter types), is an excellent antioxidant and increases metabolism, aids in weight loss, can alleviate headaches, prevent sinus infections and has been suggested to help ward off cancer, particularly prostate. They're also high in Vitamins C and A. No wonder Oprah Winfrey promotes them on her website as a “Superfood”.
In an age when North Americans are appreciating Asian and Caribbean cuisine and hot pepper fan Guy Fieri is omnipresent on the Food Network with his “Flavortown” philosophy of eclectic and spicy foods, the time is right for Shuggy's Hot and Salty Rocks. I bet Fieri would find them “Off the Hook!”
To get your own jar of the pepper spices, or more information, check out www.shuggys.ca
Shuggy with a big mouthful of flavor!