September Update Pt. 1 - a Chilli Festival comes to town

(N.B.: I started writing this post with the intention of making it quite short, simply a few unconnected things that have happened lately and are coming up soon. But typically I went off on one and now I can't bring myself to abridge it. It starts off with a list of what's supposed to be in one single post, but I decided to leave the list in and just do several posts instead so I can add pictures, links etc. and make it a little more digestible.)

More general updates and tidbits to end the surprisingly sunny and optimistic month of September 2009, including:

- Dave visits a Chilli Festival, wins a game of chicken against his own digestive system

- UK Customs deny alternative jazz-rock

- Dave fails to self-promote again, promotes other people instead

- HydraHead re-release Oxbow's long out-of-print debut album 'Fuckfest', average level of awesomeness increases all-round.

- Winter festival season gets exciting

- Dave becomes a film snob, enjoys it, and assumes you want to know about what CDs he's bought recently.

- Scott Kelly (Neurosis) plays his new band and invites you to argue about the first four Metallica records.

Now I'd like to revert back to the more comfortable First Person and continue, hopefully with a few more readers in tow thanks to the Tucker Max-style self-reference that seems to impress today's more discerning blog-followers (but probably not). Firstly, what can I say about the Fiery Foods Festival that came to town last weekend? Fucking phenomenal. I didn't even know it was happening until the day before, and then I got drunk and forgot about it before bed. I was woken up by a text message: "Chilli festival. Where's my sock?" Holy shit! No hangover could dash my hopes today.

It was merciless from the very first stall. These people simply do not fuck about. If you're the kind of person that buys that "Cool Salsa" shit with your Doritos, stop reading right now. I've since discovered that there's two kinds of stall on the chilli festival circuit. There's the rustic, culinary, homespun sort of stall - the people that make chutneys and sauces from ingredients they've grown in an allotment, package them up in quaint little jars and supply to those upmarket grocers that no one can really justify shopping in unless they live in Seer Green. These stalls were my favourites. Everything on them tasted wonderful and was made with real care by people with a proper talent for spices.

The other stalls are the ones that care not for your personal safety. They don't do pansy shit like "presentation" or "taste", they just line up their garish and frightening arsenal of sauces into a spectrum of spiciness that goes from Pretty Damn Spicy to Immediate Stomach Ulcer, and wait for victims. Wearing matching shirts and standing with their arms crossed, they scout for greenhorns to deceive with massive understatements like "That one? Yeah mate, it's got a bit of a kick to it." Then they refuse to hide their own smugness as people stumble away, spluttering and crying and sincerely wishing they were dead.

I'm being dramatic, of course, because this was definitely one of the best days of the year. All the saucemakers put out broken crackers and rice cakes and little sample dishes for us to try. I came away with a jar of half-relish, half-paste called "HHH" (standing for Hell Hot Habanero). It was from one of the 'culinary' stands, Mr. Vikki, who was definitely my favourite. Four of his sauces had been selected for stocking by Fortnum & Mason, and deservedly so. Please check this guy out if you are so inclined - I reccommend HHH, the King Naga (his hottest), and the Hot Coriander Sauce.

I was marvelling at Mr. Vikki's stand when Dan made me aware that he was suffering quite acutely. He'd already fucked himself up a bit ("Blair's Ultra Death") within five minutes of us being there (as had I with the "Dragon's Blood"), and it looked like he'd done it again. The cause of his discomfort was a little jar of something called "Pure Pain Paste". I had some of it, and it fucked me up a bit too. Then I noticed the carved wooden skull with horns sitting ominously on the table like something out of 'Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom'. It was drawing attention towards two savage-looking sauces. "Be Damned" was a really fucking hot one and actually quite tasty (as was the sweet but violent "Trinidad Scorpion"), but my mistake was to take a reccommendation by a couple of massive muscly dudes that looked like they could shit broken glass every morning without wincing. "Try the '10 Minute Burn'" they said. I can tell you that ten minutes is selling it somewhat short.

The next day we came back with Duncan and several pints of milk. We were told that fatty things like milk, ice cream and cheese were best for soothing the burn, and to avoid water. Duncan is a Mekon so he had to make do with beer, but we slammed our milk bottles down on the counter of Scorchio (UK-import home of the infamous Dave's Insanity Sauces) and informed them that today we'd come prepared. We tried a few more things and pretended to be seasoned chilli-maestros, which was fun, but quite honestly I didn't have the same gung-ho spirit as the day before. The other guys did though, and we were all in varying degrees of pain before long. I learnt that the "10 Minute Burn" had been removed from the display because two people had passed out that morning, which I relayed to the Scorchio folks. They asked me whose sauce it was and I described the stand. "Oh yes, that must be Gerald." they said. Suddenly the idea of a Travelling Chilli Carnival Community became too awesome to bear.

We got talking to a couple of other reckless folks and I suggested they try Gerald's "The Beast" sauce. They approached us again a few minutes later, laughing and in serious discomfort, proclaiming Gerald to be "some kind of dark underground chilli sadist."

Tasting some of these chilli sauces is a bizarre experience. A paste called "Fist of Fire" increased my heart rate and turned me bright red immediately. The "Mongoose" sauce sent me stumbling around light-headedly, like a 12-year old glue sniffer. Sharing voluntary intense pain is a weirdly gratifying experience, so make sure you go to the next Chilli Festival and fuck yourself up.

(to be continued...)