ANNOUNCING... Ray's Polish Fire Hot Sauce !!!!!!!
The Offical Hot Sauce of Earthwork Music !!!!!!
Invented by Ray Weglarz, Earthwork Friend.
Email Ray for availability and pricing!!!!!
Yes!!!!
Ray’s Polish Fire Hot Sauce
Seth Bernard Interviews Ray Weglarz about Polish Fire Hot Sauce
SB, How about a little PF history?.
RW, Over the last 30 years I honed my recipe for hot sauce from many small batches and taste tests with lots of different people. A lot of the original batches I made were gift bottles given to family members and friends. Then about 10 years ago when I began adding Ume Plum Vinegar from Eden Foods into the Polish Fire it all came together - in a taste sense - and I stated calling it Ray’s Polish Fire.
SB, Why did you feel you needed your own recipe for hot sauce?
RW, In 1974 I moved to Ann Arbor for college and started cooking regularly for myself for the first time. Lori Anne Hennegar introduced me to Clancy’s Fancy Hot Sauce. Clancy’s Fancy is great stuff, it blew my taste buds and changed my life. My mom was a great Polish cook, but Polish food is sort of bland and in some ways Polish Fire is a reaction to the nourishing, fattening, but bland food I grew up with. American food is generally bland too. I owe a lot to Clancy’s Fancy Hot Sauce
SB, So Clancy’s showed you that things could be different, anything, that even the food you eat every day and take for granted could be different than the food you had known your whole life.
RW, Yep. I read “Diet for a Small Planet” right when Clancy’s was dumped in my mouth and it sparked me to begin making my own hot sauces. I love to cook and to eat.
SB, What qualities are you looking for in your sauce?
RW, As my love of cooking and eating deepened, I yearned for a hot sauce that could be used in a wide variety of situations and with different types of food. I wanted a hot sauce that had as more flavor and not too much heat. But really the most important thing to me was I wanted a hot sauce that didn’t burn my arse coming out.
SB, I like that too.
RW, Frankly, the hot sauces that people claim are, “really hot” I generally stay away from. I’m not dissing any peppers, but those made with Habaneras and Jalapeno aren’t in my kitchen, I might try them time to time but they don’t move me really.
SB, Why not?
RW, Not because my mouth “cant handle the heat.” Certain hot peppers, such as those mentioned, cause “irritation” of the oral and rectal mucosa. Sort of like your eating tiny glass shards that hurt going in and coming out.
SB, Yikes! Polish Fire doesn’t do that, I’ve used loads of it and it doesn’t.
RW, The only “hot” ingredient in Polish Fire is cayenne pepper, a mucosal “stimulant”, not an irritant. People have tell me that they don’t like most hot sauces but they do like Polish Fire. Some come to even crave a dabble of Polish Fire on almost anything they eat. One women in her 70’s told me she puts it on everything but her ice cream.
SB, How did you “know” that you “had it”, the right mixture for your hot sauce?
RW, It is sort of like when I watch you tune your guitar, I know that you know when the string is just right, not too tight or too loose. Some people tune and need confirmation that they are in tune by other instruments or people or a digital tuner. When the PF was just right I knew it. I did have confirmation too as the gift bottles I gave out came back even quicker for free refills, the “nice” comments became glowing comments and seemed more sincere. Some people even seemed sort of desperate for the next bottle. I just knew.
SB, Why did you start selling it?
RW, I gave a lot of people free Polish Fire for a long time. Good sauce karma. But as lots of people tried it and liked it, the word of mouth spread about PF and so many people wanted it I needed to re-coup my costs, so I started sharing the cost with those who enjoyed using it. I never have spent money promoting PF, I just give bottles away to people and organizations and event activities and that makes it simple and as my mom always said when I was little, it is nice to share.
SB, What are some less obvious uses of PF?
RW, I like to mix a dab in my mayo to put on a sandwich, it’s a whole different feel than sprinkling it on the sandwich which I still do a lot. If you like ketchup, put a dimple in the top of your ketchup pile and fill it with PF and stir it in, and use it on fries or a burger or whatever. My bud Bill, a great natural foods chef, told me when he is tired of cooking at the Co-op, sometimes he gets a roasted chicken from the IGA on his way home from work and loads it up with Polish Fire and it does it for him. I like to marinate tofu, tempeh, fish, chicken, venison and stuff with PF before I cook it.
SB, Tell me about “PF Crusties.”
RW, My friends the Parson boys who grew up next to my house in the Copper Country in the Upper Peninsula told me about “Crusties.” They all go Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo in the Michigan. Kazoo is the Polish Fire capital right now of lower Michigan, largely because of the Parson boys and you. Graham Parsons said (mind you I haven’t tried this) when they get together to watch the Pistons or of for cards - sometimes they don’t even have snacks. They are poor college kids. They take shots of PF straight up, from the bottle, a jigger then a swill of Bell’s or some other premium brew. Sometimes they take the hard dried remnants of PF that build up around the top rim – which you know are called “Crusties.” Desiccated, concentrated Polish Fire spices. They take the Crusties on their finger tips and rub them on their gums, then try to wait as long as possible before taking a drink of water or hitting a beer or eating. It takes guts. I don’t do it.
SB, Wow! Why do you think college students and young people love PF so much?
RW, Because they’re generally so smart. I have noticed PF that in general PF appeals to people of higher intellect. Also dorm food and the fast food college students and some young people eat who don’t think they have the time to cook for themselves is so bland, so un-stimulating to the palate, that they would go bonkers and drop out if they didn’t have PF. Some people do. I think it makes people happier. I think it promotes peace inside of you which we now know is necessary for peace to exist outside too.
SB, May and I love the Polish Fire. What songs reflect the spirit of PF for you?
RW, Your song “Sinamaroo” and May’s “Dust.”
SB, Lets do a “call and response” thing, I’ll say a food - you say if you use Polish Fire on it, and lets switch after few foods. Rice? Yes, burritos? Yes, Mac and cheese? Yes- Soups? Carefully, PF seems to get exponentially hotter in hot liquids. Lets switch-
RW, Don’t they call you “Eggs Bernard?” Scrambled eggs? Yes, Over easy? Yes, Sunny side up? Yes, Potatoes? Any kind of taters I add some. Tofu? Yes-remember the Tofu song!, Pizza? Yes.
SB, What is your all time favorite PF comment?
RW, A recently departed friend, Billy Lehtinen said to me while he was tending grill at the Copper Country Trout Unlimited picnic on the Salmon Trout River, “Most hot sauces are hot, but have a shallow taste - this stuff is deep.”
Thanks Billy, Ray
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