Periodically Speaking: Fiery Foods & BBQ

Am I glad that I don't hold down a boring job like photo editor of Playboy! I'd never have the time to review magazines like Fiery Foods & BBQ, which qualifies for the "died and gone to heaven" award for lovers of spicy foods. Fiery Foods & BBQ is published bimonthly by Pioneer Communications in Des Moines, Iowa, an area more traditionally known for tuna casserole. But the magazine's heart is in the South and Southwest, as well as the Caribbean. Africa, Asia and anywhere hot chiles are lovingly grown, cut up and consumed.

The January/February issue, just into the MagSampler.com newsstand, opens with Nancy Gerlach's column, "Nancy's Fiery Fare." She devotes it to "sizzling sandwiches," and sandwiches are something that a low-level chef like me can appreciate.

She starts the column off with a history lesson. Although combinations of bread, meat and cheese can be traced back to Biblical times and the Middle Ages, the main credit should go to John Montague, the fourth Earl of Sandwich. This 18th-century fop had what would today be called a "gambling problem" at his London gentleman's club, refusing to leave the gaming tables for lunch or dinner.

Gerlach writes, "His valet would bring him snacks of meat and cheese between two pieces of bread so he could continue to play cards with one hand while eating with the other." Other dissolute types at the tables started asking for "Sandwiches," and the name stuck.

Gerlach gives us several pages of sandwich recipes that almost made me drool on the pages, potentially ruining a saleable sample magazine. I liked a grilled cheddar cheese and chile-marinated onion sandwich, to be cooked (carefully) on a barbecue grill.

I loved a recipe for a muffuletta, a sandwich invented by a Sicilian grocer in New Orleans in 1906. Gerlach notes that "Muffulettas are hard to find outside of New Orleans, and everyone there closely guards their recipes." Her spicy version involves a pimiento-stuffed green olive salad containing such ingredients as celery, red bell peppers, wine vinegar, mashed anchovies, crushed red chiles and lemon juice, to be slathered on a sandwich with such main ingredients as Genoa salami, smoked ham and mozzarella cheese.

Next in the issue is the announcement of the winners of the 2007 Scovie awards, Fiery Foods & BBQ's annual hot foods competition. To start off this 12-page article, the magazine reports there were 742 entries in such categories as Barbecue Sauce American Style, Barbecue Sauce World Beat, Bloody Mary Beverages, Mustard Condiments, Salad Dressing Condiments, Meat-Required Marinades, Meat-Required Wing Sauce, Salsa Hot, Prepared Pasta Sauce and Prepared Stir-Fry Sauce. The entries are from tiny companies all over the country, some from abroad, and virtually all the winners have Internet addresses, obligingly supplied by the magazine, where their products can be ordered.

Article Author: Ed Rust

Ed Rust runs MagSampler.com, an Internet newsstand of hundreds of magazines on all subjects. MagSampler.com offers sample copies of any of its publications for $2.59 each. Publishers use MagSampler.com to get copies into the hands of potential …

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