DEFER YOUR ENTHUSIASM (13)
By:
May 17, 2025
One in a series of enthusiastic posts, contributed by 25 HILOBROW friends and regulars, analyzing and celebrating our favorite… late-breaking obsessions, avoided discoveries, and devotions delayed! Series edited by Adam McGovern.
It’s 2025, and you’re at the local Asian market, picking out vegetables. Peppers are high on the list. And there are so many options. Anaheim, serrano, habanero, Fresno, Thai chili… they all make for potent ingredients in your newly-discovered love: vegan food.
(You’re not even vegan, but hot chilis and their corresponding flavors make all the difference in vegan cooking.)
It’s 2017, and you’re at a restaurant in Dallas, Texas, staring in disbelief as your coworker dumps ketchup and Tabasco sauce on his scrambled eggs.
“Why would you put Tabasco on your eggs?” you ask.
“Think of it this way,” he says. “Do you put hot sauce on your meat?”
“No,” you say. “I don’t put hot sauce on anything.”
(Hot sauce is weird.)
It’s 2022, and your roommate has just introduced you to a YouTube show called “Hot Ones.” The gimmick is consistent: a celebrity sits down for an interview and answers questions while eating chicken wings that are doused in increasingly spicy sauces, on a Scoville scale from 500 to several hundred thousand.
You usually hate celebrity interviews. They’re repetitive and vapid. But the depth and intelligence of the questions posed by interviewer Sean Evans makes for fascinating viewing.
(That, and when the perpetual eighth sauce, Da Bomb, makes them sweat and reach for the milk.)
It’s 2010, and you’re grabbing Taco Bell on the way home from work.
“Hot sauce?”
“Oh, no, mild sauce, please. Thanks.”
(Hot sauce ruins flavors, you think. You want to actually taste your tacos.)
It’s 2023, and your weekly group of game night friends is sitting around the kitchen table with buckets of fried chicken, staring at the counter where five hot sauces featured on “Hot Ones” have been lined up in a row. Classic, Heartbeat’s Dill Pickle Serrano, Secret Aardvark, Dirty Dick’s, and of course, Da Bomb.
It’s a challenge. And you could never turn down a challenge.
(The first four flavors are surprisingly wonderful. Da Bomb results in your sticking your head in the freezer.)
It’s 2009, and you’re reading a comic by The Oatmeal about Sriracha. You’ve never tried it, because hot sauce is scary. But you’re a relatively new California resident, and you want to do it like the locals (put Sriracha on everything). You decide to buy a bottle.
(It’s so, so spicy. It’s sort of fun but also sort of miserable. Who enjoys this?)
It’s 2023, and you’ve turned the breakfast counter into a hot sauce football tournament. A variety pack of 30-something sauces is slowly being demolished, and each yard on the counter indicates an increase or decrease in sauce quality.
The thing about hot sauce is that you have to balance the stupid bro bad-assery with culinary craft. There is enjoyment, and then there are people who want bragging rights. “Shit the Bed Hot Sauce”? Please.
A cayenne bourbon monstrosity has taken the “Never again” position in the end zone. Other zones include “Not bad, would try again” and “So average I’d rather eat paste.”
(It doesn’t work the way it’s supposed to because at least a third of the sauces you try need refrigeration after being opened and are AWOL.)
It’s 1995, and your dad is your hero. Your parents are telling a classic story: they were eating at a restaurant where the spice level of dishes was rated from 1 to 10. You could order any number from 1 to 10. Your dad ordered an 11, and the waiters showed up with pitchers of ice water ready to pour down his throat.
(You and your sisters all gasp appropriately. Because spicy food is scary stuff, but your dad is your hero, and he can do anything.)
It’s 2025, and you’ve just gotten home from the Asian market with vegetables and chili peppers and a few bags of your favorite brand of rice cracker. Upon unloading the crackers, you notice you’ve accidentally purchased the “hot chili” flavor.
A pang of panic hits you in the back of your mind. You can’t eat these. They’re scary. They’re weird. They’re miserable.
… then the current timeline comes back, and it sticks.
Hot chili? Right. It’s probably cayenne, or something equally lame. You open the bag and start popping the crackers into your mouth like popcorn. You barely register the heat. You can do anything.
DEFER YOUR ENTHUSIASM: INTRODUCTION by Adam McGovern | Mandy Keifetz on FAITH | Heather Quinlan on THE GRATEFUL DEAD | Carlo Rotella on SMOOTHER GROOVES | Art Wallace on MICHIGAN | Kelly Jean Fitzsimmons on TAYLOR SWIFT | Josh Glenn on ART | James Scott Maloy on BE-BOP DELUXE | Jake Zucker on LIGHT SLEEPER | Gabriela Pedranti on THE BIG BANG THEORY | Adam McGovern on DOGS | Tana Sirois on COLLABORATIVE EVOLUTION | Rani Som on LED ZEP | Holly Interlandi on HOT SAUCE | Jeff Lewonczyk on TWIN PEAKS | Nikhil Singh on PRE-TEEN DAVID LYNCH PROBLEMS | Christopher Rashee Stevenson on O’NEILL & THE SEA | Fran Pado on SHARKS | Juan Recondo on BEN GRIMM’S INNER LIFE | Miranda Mellis on KARL OVE KNAUSGAARD | Mimi Lipson on SOBRIETY | William Nericcio on ELYSIUM | Crockett Doob on SLEATER-KINNEY | Marlon Stern Lopez on PAT THE BUNNY | Crystal Durant on SEX AND THE CITY | …and more!
JACK KIRBY PANELS | CAPTAIN KIRK SCENES | OLD-SCHOOL HIP HOP | TYPEFACES | NEW WAVE | SQUADS | PUNK | NEO-NOIR MOVIES | COMICS | SCI-FI MOVIES | SIDEKICKS | CARTOONS | TV DEATHS | COUNTRY | PROTO-PUNK | METAL | & more enthusiasms!