BBQ, Hot Sauce & The Hero’s Journey
The Food and Ritual of Our Past
For me cooking outside over fire with friends and family is one of the best ways to spend a summer day. Cooking outdoors evokes memories of hot temperatures, hot sauce, cool beer, music and friends. It also evokes other, more formative memories.
When I was 13, I went on a camping trip with my uncle Mark deep into the woods and set up a small camp. That night there was no moon and the sky was overcast. Being in the forest at night is spooky enough but the total darkness made the experience even more disorienting and eerie. You could wave your hand in front of your face and not see a thing.
We built a small fire and cooked beans straight in the can, nestled cabbage wrapped in foil down into the coals. That night, fire felt important - not just for staying warm as the cool moist air from the creek nearby settled in the valley - but for transforming our provisions into something edible, nourishing and tasty. Learning to control fire might be the single most powerful development in human history. That night in the Ozark wilderness, I felt that power and I’ve never stopped thinking about the experience and how much fun it was.
Humans have gathered around fires for tens of thousands of years — not just to eat, but to connect, to celebrate, to pass something on.
A New Kind of Fire Ritual
I’m not the first to point this out, but I’ve got a more novel theory about another kind of ritual — one that also involves fire, just on the inside: Hot sauce and its possible relation to the tradition of the Rite of Passage.
Every culture has rites of passage — intense, often challenging experiences meant to push someone through a transformation. You go in one person and come out changed. The Spartans, for example, had one of the most notorious versions, the agōgē, where boys were trained to endure the elements, fear, and hardship alone in the wilderness. These were trials meant to turn them into adults prepared to live and thrive.
Today? Well… we have hot sauce, and an internet show you may have heard of, Hot Ones presented by Sean Evans.
Trial by Heat: The Hot Ones Gauntlet
Hot sauces have been around for a very long time and historically most were not as intense as the hottest sauces out there today. Many of the hottest peppers used in these sauces weren’t even around 50 years ago. But lately, the culture around hot sauce has been trending towards the extreme. Hot Ones is an example. “How hot can you endure it? Can you traverse the gauntlet? Can you survive the Carolina Reaper? Want to try it on camera for a worldwide audience while being asked probing questions?” Sounds like a test to me.
Just watch a few episodes. The guest starts off confident, then comes that first really hot wing - he gets hit with what anthropologists call stage 1 – separation, he is separated from his previous state of mind. This is also the moment of panic. At this point the producer usually inserts worrying sound effects with comedic timing. Sometimes you can literally see the anxiety hitting the guest.
Then comes liminality — the in-between stage. He’s sweating, crying, laughing deliriously and then the interviewer challenges him with a deep question just as the heat peaks.
Finally, incorporation. The last wing. A final question. A triumphant, tear-stained finish. Our hero returns to pitch their latest project. The journey is complete. Sean calls it the “gauntlet”.
It’s genius. A spicy little Hero’s Journey, filmed on YouTube, one wing or cauliflower chunk at a time.
Why We Still Seek the Fire
I think the popularity of hot sauce — and even the joy of cooking out with our friends — is partly related to our need for these experiences of connection and challenges.
I know that this is a little far out and maybe the capsaicin is getting to my brain. But I did not come up with this idea in a chili pepper fever dream, or at least it was not only that. There are a few scholars that can bac me up: Sebastian Junger (Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging 2016) and Joseph Campbell (The Hero with a Thousand Faces 1949) make the point that humans need meaningful trials. We want to be transformed.
“The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.”
(Joseph Campbell)
Hot sauce as a food that acts as a mini transformation to get you ready for the challenges to come - waking up your senses and reminding yourself that you can handle it? Why not?
Maybe today, these rituals are still with us because they are so important to our health and happiness. Perhaps when we need that challenge, the “trial” can consist of simply eating something so spicy it makes you sweat and maybe even cry. And the traditions of connecting with our tribe lives on through grilling over open flame with your pals. Whatever form it takes, the practice still matters, and it’s a lot of fun!
Ritual in a Bottle
Our sauces were made with this spirit of ritual and renewal. They are stripped down and bare. Raw, unfiltered, pure, exploding with flavor and enzymes to animate you and your food. Whether you’re coating ribs, topping grilled vegetables, or lighting up your tofu skewer, the bold, fermented flavor of Superfood Bar Co. hot sauces takes BBQ back to its original place. These aren’t just condiments, or hot sauce — they are potions of transformation.