Get us some Filipino hot sauce from Mama Sita!
Great article featuring the siling labuyo chile, which we had never heard of before now. This chile is actually from Capsicum frutescens, the same as a Rocoto chile…although the siling labuyo looks like a miniature cayenne pepper. From the Manila Bulletin Online, we found this article which you may find interesting if only for the historical perspective of chile peppers in the Phillipines.
When she was still a child, superstar Nora Aunor once said, they would prop the labuyo chili before they did the house whenever a storm was coming. Such is the reverence of Filipinos for the unassuming yet fiery siling labuyo.
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Commented at May 23, 2007- 4:44 pm
I know my response to this is a little late, but where can we get seeds for the labuyo in the US? I spent four years in the Philippines, and these peppers are great!
Hopefully, my wife’s family will send some pods soon!
Commented at August 16, 2010- 11:21 am
Got no idea where in the U.S. can we find labuyo seeds…I know one in Toronto and its suburbs. (Oceans at intersection Highway 410/Queens St. in Brampton, and Four Seasons AAA near along Kennedy Ave./Orenda Ave. Brampton, too.
Come and see Niagara Falls and CN Tower on the way too.
Commented at August 24, 2010- 10:26 pm
The Philippine sili (or siling) means chile and labuyo means wild, i.e., wild chile. Notice in the referenced article that the sili labuyo fruits grow upright and are not pendulent. The chiles are bright red and elongated.
Where the fruits look like berries, birds are attracted to the fruit (capsaicin has no affect on the birds digestive system) and willingly contribute to the fertilized aerial dispersal of the chile seeds. Pendulent chiles (domesticated) hang down and hide their fruits. Wild chiles are smaller and generally grow towards the sun.
In my observation, the sili labuyo fruits are similar to the variety annuum pequins, as is the heat level. While related to the bird’s eye or even a cayenne (generally referring to the capsicum annuum) rather than the frutescen (tabasco) variety as stated in the article, the sili labuyo packs a lot of heat. I question the article as to the fact that the sili labuyo which I have handled and eaten in the Philippines is a frutescen, as it is a thicker-skinned variety than the thin-fleshed chile Tabasco.
Mama Sita’s Pure Labuyo Red Hot Pepper Sauce is available in Jungle Jim’s and is an excellent sauce. The packaging is reminiscent of McIlhenny’s Tabasco sauce where the bottle is a 2 oz. shaker bottle with a very professional label and packaged in a box. Even the cap is a deep green shaped the same as McIlhenny’s.
The sauce is thin, vinegary-hot, flavorful and really has a tasty zing. The consistency is nearly-identical to the thin-strained Tabasco we all know. The sauce is made with sili labuyo, vinegar, and salt. The package states “Favorite Recipes Since 1936″ signed by Teresita “Mama Sita” Reyes…and it is my belief that Mama Sita’s was meant to capture the Filipino market mimicking (almost identically) the Tabasco sauce look, packaging and marketing.
Where the Philippines was an American colony from the Spanish-American War in 1898 until independence in 1946, American education, marketing, manufactured goods and the English-language influence was the predominant culture adapted by the Filipinos, which they welcomed with open arms. The Americans, after MacArthur’s return, drove the Japanese out of the Philippines in WWII, and sealed the Filipinos gratitude and alliance, as well as their acceptance of American culture, i.e., in this case, manufactured foods.
With that said, Mama Sita’s is a great tasting pepper sauce made from chiles that originated and arrived from Mexico (Acapulco) by the Manila galleons on the first trans-Pacific trade route that made the port of Manila the distribution point of East meets West. The Spanish controlled New Spain/Mexico/Peru as well as the Philippines (named after King Philip II). Silver mined from the Americas was prized (and hoarded) by the Chinese merchants who traded porcelain and silk, along with the early cross-shipping of indigenous foods, fruits and vegetables from both sides of the world.