AlbertaViews
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March/April, 2000:
Jane Harris
"What's for Dinner Alberta"
"Excerpt"
Consider the Simmons family. In 1976, Basil and
Hilda and their daughter, Margaret, arrived in
Lethbridge from Guyana, South America. Last fall,
their family specialty, Basil's Fire and
Brimstone Hot Sauce, made it to the shelves of
Save-On Food Stores in both Alberta and British
Columbia, a desired item for Albertans who may
have only the vaguest idea where Guyana is.
Though, at first blush, it may not seem that
South American hot sauce could be called an
Alberta regional food, Basil's Fire and Brimstone
Hot Sauce does fit into our regional cuisine
tradition. From the time the first white settlers
arrived, new waves of immigrants have borrowed
and shared favorite dishes - bannock, Scottish
scones, Ukrainian perogies - with neighbors. The
Simmonses have adapted their traditional sauce
for the Canadian market, incorporating mangoes
and cucumbers to give it a unique flavour and
golden colour suited to the taste of Albertans.
And it can be used, they point out, on almost any
type of food: curries, potato salad, salsa,
barbecue sauces, chicken wings, and soups - even
strawberry dip.
Only as recently as 1998, the family began to
share their sauce with visitors to the Heritage
Day Ethnic Food Fair in Lethbridge. Soon after
they took it to the farmer's markets and
specialty shops. Their big break, into the
Overwaitea chain, came when staff in Lethbridge's
Save-On Foods asked Margaret why she was
purchasing large quantities of Scotch Bonnet
peppers. Discovering the family was manufacturing
a hot sauce, staff asked to test it, loved it,
and moved quickly to get it on the store shelves.
Part of the Simmonses' success is undoubtedly due
to Albertan's growing love for ethnic foods, but
it is also a result of the family's determination
to get through all the licensing, labeling and
testing hoops and regulations. Plus, well, the
Simmonses just have a passion for showing
Albertans how to use this spicy sauce. Explains
Margaret, "We demo it. That's part of our
education process."
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