The best part of the inaugural Ozark Flame & Flavor Festival? You will have a great time even if you don’t take well to hot and spicy food.
But for the flame fanatics in Arkansas and beyond, it will be nothing short of heaven.
Scheduled for 3:30 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. this Saturday at Record Downtown in Bentonville, the festival will feature food – including mild-heat selections – live music and a variety of spicy eating contests.
“We have something for everybody at the festival,” said Stephen Curgan, one of the festival organizers. “It’s not just for spice-lovers and chili heads. The kids are going to have a good time. If you don’t like spicy at all, it’s still going to be very entertaining.”
As befitting somebody with the nickname of “Firey Redd,” Curgan will not spend his Saturday as a passive participant. He is a three-time world champion competitive pepper-eater (is that a great sentence or what) who will take part in a League of Fire-sanctioned competitive “belt match” eating contest. Just think of the League of Fire as the NFL or WWE of sanctioned hot pepper showdowns – and yes, it will include a championship belt for the winner. How great is that?
“I love the idea of having a Bentonville belt,” Curgan said. “So we’re going to have that this year. We’re going to try to keep that going year over year as long as we can do well.”
For the brave of heart, the festival will also offer up a spicy wing-eating competition, an amateur pepper-eating competition and even a kids spicy-eating showdown. In addition, the festival will spotlight a number of craft hot sauce offerings from around the region.
“People are going to be able to go sample all these hot sauces and vote for who they think has the best sauce, and whoever wins will get the People’s Choice Award,” Curgan said.
For those feeling adventurous but unsure of where to begin, there are a few things to keep in mind. To start, peppers are graded by Scoville Heat Units. A common jalapeno usually runs between 2,500 and 8,000 SHU, which sounds like a lot, but actually lies on the milder end of things. A habanero pepper can reach up to 350,000 SHU, and specially cultivated scorchers like Pepper X and the Carolina Reaper can go well over two million.
Naturally, we advise the kind of caution one should have when eating something with “reaper” in its name.
Beyond that, it helps to have some food already in your system if you are going to consume all that heat, as an empty stomach can become a cramping stomach when bombarded by hot peppers. It also behooves you to wash your hands of any pepper residue before using the bathroom, for reasons that should be patently obvious.
Curgan didn’t start out as a spice fanatic – his idea of risk-taking food as a teenager was limited primarily to asking the local Taco Bell for Diablo sauce packets. But the older he got, the more he found himself enjoying hot sauces that provided a challenge for mere mortals.
“I thought the idea of eating a habanero would be insane,” Curgan said.
Some folks are simply born with sturdier constitutions when it comes to food, and that’s okay. If you’re looking to branch out, make sure you have a “baseline” of flavors or SHU numbers, then gradually turn it up at your own pace. Remember that heat and flavor should go hand in hand.
“This is our inaugural event, and honestly, the first time I’ve ever done a festival,” Curgan said. “But I’ve been to a lot of these, and I know what I think makes them great.”
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