Yeah, I've heard about whole Mississippi towns taken off the calendar. Oil drilling rigs floating up rivers, refining facilities taking heavy damages.
And I guess 80% of New Orleans is under water, a fate I can relate to in a vague way after this summer's flooded basement, my own personal drainage problems.
And I have a soft spot for New Orleans. 'Confederacy of Dunces' is one of my all time favorite books, I love Chef Paul, the libertine traditions of Mardi Gras and wish I could get an ice-cold Dr. Nut.
And gas is going to get more expensive, which I agree sucks, but what about hot sauce?
Tabasco's web site is offline due to the general Gulf Coast disaster area, and I have to wonder if Avery Island is a bunch of puddles of sea water with barrels of future supplies of the most famous hot sauce on earth getting ruined.
This comes as a nasty shock to me when I was getting ready to write a fan letter to the Tabasco people for keeping it a family business but licensing the packaging of individual servings through Heinz. When I cave in to the Reilly influence and get a hot dog at QuikTrip, the thing that perfects it is those single-serving Tabasco pouches.
The Tabasco people claim the product has a five year shelf life. Unopened, maybe. But it would be more accurate to say that a lot of refrigerators have a five year old bottle, half full of separated, brownish stuff. Oxidation takes its toll, and the sauce (which has more vinegar than you want for a lot applications to begin with) tends to oxidize faster than most people use it. The pouches are the perfect fix: you don't expose it to air until you're going to eat it, and the flavor is exquisite.
My first encounter with Tabasco, I was twelve or so. We were having tacos, which was pretty regular. At least as often as a Chef Boyardee pizza kit, Mom would make tacos. She used regular seasoning for the ground beef, for some reason McCormick instead of the local favorite Williams. Chopped lettuce, diced tomatoes, shredded cheese. Shells warmed in the oven. And I got curious about the Tabasco, asked if I could put some on my taco. Dad said sure, but to go easy on it, a little goes a long ways.
I drizzled eight or ten drops across my first taco and bit into the fires of hell. But I couldn't admit I'd overdone it. I couldn't give Dad that victory. I ate every bite of that taco, nose running, eyes watering, sweat running down my scalp. And by the time I finished it, I loved it. The endorphin rush (I didn't know that's what it was at the time) had kicked in and I was in heaven.
So even though Mrs. Renfro's Habanera Salsa has taken first place in my spicey staples inventory, and even though I tend to add crushed red pepper to a lot of things I don't want the vinegar tang of Tabasco on, I can't conceive of home not including a bottle of Avery Island's answer to fire. I hope, if the French Quarter is submerged, that by some miracle, Tabasco is on high enough ground that the flow of hot sauce will be uninterrupted.
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