Greater than 40 years in the past, my father Joe and my then-boyfriend revolutionized the Key West eating scene. This was not a superb factor; some locals nonetheless blame them for unlucky culinary addictions and ongoing digestive misery.
That’s as a result of Joe and my boyfriend (to guard the responsible, let’s name him Ed) launched my unsuspecting island buddies to the spiciest scorching peppers they’d ever tasted.
Aside from his ardour for peppers, I adored my father. A retired promoting author, he was quirky, unconventional, artistic and deeply enthusiastic about what made folks tick.
Throughout his first go to to Key West within the early Eighties, when the island was nonetheless a haven for fishermen and hobbyist marijuana smugglers, he was enthralled by its end-of-the-world ambiance and eccentric characters.
The general impact was too heady to withstand. Virtually instantly he and my mom offered their Arizona dwelling and settled right into a small Key West cottage. Inside weeks, Joe knew the neighborhood canines by title and was immersed in researching the Keys’ seafaring historical past.
Analysis on one other subject impressed him to launch a company whose title nonetheless strikes worry into the hearts of Key West gourmets: the Southernmost Pepper Individuals Society.
My father had been an aficionado of spicy meals for many of his grownup life. Throughout a foray to St. Augustine, he found one of many spiciest — the datil pepper.
“I ate one and rattling close to died,” he later informed me proudly, as if that was a constructive advice.
His rampant curiosity led him to find that datils had been supposedly delivered to the U.S. from Minorca and had been just about unknown outdoors the St. Augustine space. Earlier than lengthy, he had launched them to Key West.
Joe earned a popularity for rising datils within the island’s scorching local weather. However it wasn’t till he grew to become the “head pod” of the Southernmost Pepper Individuals Society that he gained lasting infamy.
The society was a loose-knit group of principally male pepperheads who met periodically for dinner and copious portions of alcohol. Every member ready and introduced a number of dishes to the gatherings — apparently with the purpose of serving one thing too scorching for fellow members to eat.
My boyfriend Ed was Joe’s enthusiastic confederate in society issues, and most dinners had been held at our shabby home in Outdated City. Ed had his personal pepper dependancy: the terrifyingly scorching pili-pili, an African selection whose title (in no less than one language) may be loosely translated as “male organ.”
My mom and I had been dragooned into chairing the Pepper Individuals girls’ auxiliary, often known as the Sizzling Flashes. Different common society members included songstress Vicki Roush, builder Terry Brown, radio character Jerry Reed, and a man identified solely as Tom the Bomb Maker — plus an ever-changing solid of visiting and native denizens drawn by the lurid tales that emerged about dinners and their after-effects.
Whereas I can’t attribute it to the society, spicy meals had an enormous spike in recognition round that point. Some years later, island residents Tom Luna and Michael Fatica even opened a store referred to as Peppers of Key West, that includes what could have been the world’s first hot-sauce tasting bar.
A paradise for pepperheads, the emporium provided a whole bunch of sauces that ranged from delicate to shockingly spicy. A couple of had been rated too harmful for the tasting bar, however patrons who introduced beer had been generally allowed to pattern secret blends or these in growth.
At this time the Southernmost Pepper Individuals Society is (maybe mercifully) not operational. Peppers of Key West closed its Key West retailer, and Joe and Ed are concocting hellishly scorching dishes in a heavenly realm. However preserved in my keepsakes, I nonetheless have my father’s self-penned cookbook – full of hot-to-the-max recipes that function (what else?) his beloved datils.