The Red Hot Chile Cookbook
We recently interviewed Dan May, a chile grower and sauce maker with Trees Can’t Dance. His new cookbook, “The Red Hot Chile Cookbook”, is forthcoming and available at Amazon.com.
About Dan May: “For 13 years Dan traveled and worked as a landscape photographer, producing images that were used by companies all over the world. His love of some of the most remote places on the globe first brought him into close contact not only with chiles, but with people who cooked with them and loved them. Dan grew some chiles as a hobby in 2005 and before he knew it he had the world’s most northerly chile farm and had accidentally changed careers. Trees Can’t Dance now supplies an ever-growing range of chile saucery throughout the UK, Europe, the Middle East and beyond. Everything is lovingly made by hand at TCD HQ, just a few miles from where the business started.”
The Interview
When did you first discover your love for chile peppers?
I had always enjoyed moderately spicy food whilst I was growing up; currys and chili mainly. It wasn’t until I became a photographer and found myself travelling more widely that I realized the complexity of flavor they can bring and began to really love them.
You began as a landscape photographer and fell into the chile pepper business. How exactly did that happen?
I spent a great deal of time travelling as a photographer, often in areas of the world where chilies are a significant element in any meal (the south west US, Central America, South Africa & Italy). On my return to the UK I found that I was unable to reproduce many of the flavors I had experienced on my travels because the raw ingredients simply weren’t available. So I set about putting up some poly-tunnels and growing my own….
Your company is called Trees Can’t Dance. How did that name come about? Do you have a large staff?
Trees have an interesting place in folklore throughout the world. The idea of a dreaming tree, somewhere of permanence to go and sit and think and solve your problems, is a common theme to not only Celtic tradition but also to the cultures of the indigenous people from the areas that most of our modern chilli plants originate.
You may not be able to solve all your problems by thinking about them, but combine it with dancing and who knows?
Currently we have 11 staff including myself working in the TCD kitchens and the office and 3 further part time staff.
What types of products does Trees Can’t Dance produce?
We make several ranges of chili sauce from our very mild plum dipping sauce through to Dan’s Reserve which is wickedly hot. A range of chili preserves, marinades, pastes and some rather fun individually packed naga marinated pickled onions for the snack market. All made using entirely natural, fresh ingredients, nothing artificial and certainly no chili extract or resin to artificially make them hotter!
How many bottles do you produce per year?
This year we will produce somewhere around 500,000 units.
Do you have a personal favorite type of spicy food?
I love any aromatic spicy food; particularly those that use fish and seafood which I think lend themselves wonderfully to the flavors and heat of chili peppers. I also love dishes that use the peppers in the raw form; for example I love to make an African Bean Stew which is modestly spicy and then, on the plate, sprinkle finely chopped fruity habaneros over the top so, although they are uncooked, the steam releases that fabulous aroma.
What is your favorite chile pepper?
I love the Fatalli habanero. To me is has the perfect blend of looks, heat, flavor and aroma. It is also one of the easiest hot peppers to grow.
What do you think about all the superhot chile peppers we’ve seen in the last few years, like the Trinidad Scorpion Butch T?
It is tremendously exciting, however; they come along so quickly now that I personally have my doubts that all of them represent proven new varieties. We have always worked on the basis that you would first need to complete 5 successive cycles of planting seed, growing, harvesting and then planting seed from these plants and so on, with no cross pollination. The plants would in turn need to produce fruit that is largely identical in appearance, flavor and heat across the 5 cycles to have established a genuine new strain of pepper that can be relied upon to continue producing the expected results. Realistically this would be a 5 year project and I can think of very few recent examples where this degree of rigorous science has been applied to exciting new strains of pepper. This is possibly why they seem to come and go again so frequently…..
Are you noticing any trends in the spicy food community that excite you? Something you’re looking forward to?
I think there is a definite move towards the gentrification of spicy food in general. Palates are more sophisticated and in the same way things moved for olive oil, garlic and pasta and of course wine it is now no longer enough to solely provide a lowest common denominator product like the plethora of devilishly hot novelty sauces (although there will always be a place for those!) People understand the flavors and usage of individual chili varieties far better than they did even 3 years ago and this gives them the confidence to use them more frequently and expect more from producers like us. Our aim has always been to provide chili based products that help our customers fulfill some of these culinary aspirations rather than limiting their applications. We want to see our products become standard aids to cooking in family homes. Allowing people to experience a wonderful range and diversity of chili flavors, with little fuss, in their own kitchens.
Tell us more about your cookbook. Aside from chile peppers, were there any specific inspirations for your recipes?
I have probably spent as much time handling, tasting, cooking with and thinking about chilies as anybody in the world over the past 5 years and this time itself has provided the inspiration for these recipes. At the same time I have spent more time cooking for my kids (4 of them from age 9 down to 3 weeks!) and family as they have grown and this was key to me looking at incorporating those key chili flavors into food in a way that made them work for the whole family.
Are these all personal recipes? Do you have a favorite in the collection?
These are all recipes I love to cook. They have featured in some of the best days of my life; for example I catered my own wedding with some of these dishes – with the help of some great friends, and just last weekend we celebrated the birth of our newest addition with Chorizo, Garlic and Potato Soup, Spicy Burgers, African Bean Stew and the Perfect Bloody Mary for 50. So these recipes are well-used! I love a lot of the recipes in this book; but if I could only make one forever more I think it would be a fiery fish stew in one form or another.
Did your love of cooking come before or after your love for chile peppers? I’ve seen it go both ways.
I began cooking from a very young age; my mother expected me to produce a decent meal for everyone fairly regularly – which was great. Subsequently I have probably averaged about 3 hours a day cooking since I was 17, so I definitely cooked before I knew what a chile pepper was!
If your life could be turned into a movie, who would you like to play YOU on the big screen? What might the movie TITLE be? (NOTE: I’m a produced screenwriter, so this could really happen!)
A slightly difficult request…..I guess it would have to be John Cusack and like my autobiography (if I ever get asked to write one) ‘By The End Of May….’ would be a fun title!
Trees Can't Dance
Any other parting thoughts?
This is a book about the joy of cooking, the way it can bring people together and even mark great and memorable days in your life. The kitchen has always been the heart of our home and there are few things that I can imagine giving more pleasure than cooking and eating a great meal with friends and family.
Learn more about Dan’s company here: www.treescantdance.co.uk
Purchase “The Red Hot Chile Cookbook” here at Amazon.com.
If you enjoy cooking with chili peppers, check out our books as well.
Aside from chili peppers, what do you feel is the key ingredient(s) in making the perfect hot sauce? 
