Foals: We’re changing the macho image of hot sauce
There’s a video on YouTube entitled “Colin Farrell searches for meaning in the pain of spicy wings.” In it, the ageing hunk dollops hot sauce on chicken, eats it, then squirms in pain. The 28-minute video has racked up over 3m views in a little over a month.
Halfway through, host Sean Evans boasts that after collaborating with hot sauce aficionado Chili Klaus, he spent “five or six hours holding a jug of milk in my living room and filling my mouth up with milk.” Laughing, Farrell adds: “He just loves it doesn’t he? He just finds meaning in that pain.“
Hot sauce’s macho image is backed by the stats. Retailer Hot Sauce Emporium says 70 per cent of its customers are male, and hot sauce subscription company Hop Burns Black tells City A.M. it has a majority of male subscribers each month, “although we wouldn’t want to assume anyone’s gender.”
What is it about hot sauce and spice that appeals to men? “Chilli heat can be painful and so the ability to withstand this is a test of virility and macho-ness,” says food psychologist Greg Tucker. “The women look on in bemusement – there is a male bonding, competitive element and a female bonding observer thing occurring.”
A 2014 study even proved that men who like spicy foods are more likely to be ‘alpha males’ with lots of testosterone. Interestingly, another study one year later proved that men are more likely to lie about enjoying spicy foods than women.
Dr Burnorium, creator of the Psycho Juice hot sauce, which comes with a health waiver illustrated with skulls and crossbones, describes the experience of chowing on XXL chillies: “You can’t stay still, it feels like your brain is running at a million miles an hour and a siren going off on in your head,” he says. “The world gets mighty small and you can’t concentrate on anything but the sheer hellfire that you have just consumed. The pain that builds is excruciating. However, the crescendo that ends with pure joy is wonderous.”
And yet, over the past half-decade or so, those working within the hot sauce industry have noticed that the tide is changing: more women are making and engaging with hot sauce and the myriad hot sauce events (there are dozens every year in the UK), and there has been a rise in interest in flavour over adrenaline-chasing.
Jack Bevan, drummer from British rock outfit Foals, is the latest to ignore the macho culture around hot sauce and focus on flavour. “I’m very keen to not add to that gendered narrative,” he tells City A.M.
“There’s a corner of the market where people are doing it for dares and challenging each other, but that’s the gimmicky corner I’m personally not really interested in,” says Bevan, whose sauce Holy Fire Hot Honey, a collaboration with Sauce Shop, is available now. “My favourite hot sauces are always ones that just taste really good – they add a level of heat but the heat’s not the reason you’re going there. You’re going there for the flavour and the heat’s like an addition.”
Pip Bradley of Pip’s Hot Sauce was an early female voice in a majority male industry when she set up her business in 2013. Since then she has won the BBC Good Food Show award for her innovative products, which run the gamut of flavours from pineapple to Tom Yum soup and CBD oil. “Macho culture gave me imposter syndrome for a lot longer than it should,” says Bradley. “People thought, ‘You’re not a blokey sauce manufacturer, you’re just some bird.’ It took me until last year to get over that and accept it when someone says: ‘This is brilliant’.”
Science tells us that chilli releases endorphins in our brains that makes us feel good, which explains some of the fascination with XL hot sauces. But Allie Behr, founder of the female-run Hot Sauce Society, which began in 2019, has witnessed what happens when this desire for an adrenaline rush goes too far. She’s seen groups indulging in too much spice and killing the potential to enjoy flavour. “When people have eaten [XXX hot sauces] they’re like, ‘Oh I’ve ruined my day now,” she says. “I can’t taste anything and I feel terrible.
“The toxic masculine culture is one of the reasons I avoid chilli festivals like the plague,” says Bradley. “There are only so many Jeremy Clarksonites I can deal with in one day.”
For Bradley, the desire to push yourself with spice is understandable, but she separates the adrenaline-seeking from the performative actions associated with it. “To see if you can push the limits, why not? It’s the way it’s all dressed up in this macho lad culture that’s unfortunate, because you can have one without the other.”
Dr Burnorium agrees that the macho hot sauce culture is a show: “Everyone has got that mate who brags about how hot he likes his curry and how his new hot sauce has incinerated his insides. Even though deep down everyone knows he likes a korma and his fluffy slippers, not that there’s anything wrong with wearing fluffy slippers.”
It’s an apt metaphor for Foals. Their lead singer Yannis Philippakis might have a reputation for smashing up kit during sets but the reality of their lives off stage, at least for Bevan, has been beavering away in the kitchen. “Touring opened my eyes to all the different kinds of foods out there. Now it’s one of my biggest passions,” he says.
There might have been a time where a rock group joining forces with a food company was seen as selling out – but the band say the collaboration felt “organic.”
“I mean, honestly, if we were putting out loads of crap I would worry about that,” admits Bevan. “There was a bit of an old school attitude towards anything like that amongst bands when we started back in 2006. Now, it’s cooler – I feel comfortable getting into that side of the market.”
Foals Holy Fire Hot Sauce is available now from Sauce Shop. The next Hot Sauce Society event is on 9 July in Birmingham; tickets are available now. Pipshotsauce.co.uk. Foals image credit: Edward Cooke