About Us
The perfect chili sauce doesn’t happen overnight.
J.D. Paternoster knows this. He has spent most of his life growing the ingredients that make up JD’s South Philly Hot Sauce.
His self-described obsession with gardening began at the age of ten, tending to tomatoes in his mother’s garden. Although it was his favorite pastime, he did very poorly at first. Undaunted by his failure (and the teasing of friends and relatives), he became more determined than ever to become a top grower of tomato plants and he hit the books - the tomato books. His studies taught him a great deal about plants, fruits and vegetables.
A few years later, after J.D. became a much better grower of tomatoes, a friend gave him some peppers to plant and he became obsessed with growing peppers. Luckily, peppers and tomatoes are closely related and he was able to simultaneously work with both. Years of experimentation with many species of chili peppers followed. Fertilizers, disease controllers, lighting and heating techniques; all of these were toils that J.D. gladly put into his obsession with tomatoes and chili peppers!
An unexpected consequence of perfecting his techniques and efficiency was that he began to harvest too many tomatoes and chili peppers. This was a dilemma because an overabundance of crops meant that much of it would rot. Obviously, there was no way to start growing fewer crops, especially after spending years trying to perfect the efficiency of the small garden in South Philadelphia, J.D.’s quandary was “what do I do with all these excess products?”
Just as he experimented with growing techniques, J.D. began to research using his crops in new ways After all, since he grows over 40 varieties of chili peppers, there has to be a good use for them! Vodka and vinegar were amongst the items that he produced in the laboratory. Over time, it was the hot sauce that won out.
The formula that began to take shape and become the mainstay of the product line involved making the sauce with figs. Why figs? Well, why not? On a summer night in 2002, J.D.’s mother-in-law happened to come over on sauce making night with a basket of figs from her fig tree. J.D. put some figs into the formula and the no-longer-secret ingredient to perfecting hot sauce was found! The “Figgin’ Hot” line was born on that sweltering evening in South Philadelphia. Soon, it would be followed by Extreme (XXX) BBQ Sauce, Smokin’ BBQ Sauce as well as the (so-called) Mild salsa. Philadelphia magazine says that “the Mild actually has a lot of heat, balanced out by the sweetness of pineapple.”
J.D. admits that, if it were up to him, there would be no such thing as “Mild” sauce. After years of growing the plants in his yard and cooking it in his kitchen, J.D., who has even brought in culinary experts to help him perfect his formula, now makes larger and more consistent batches than ever!
Ha Ha Hot Sauce from South Philly... It aint nuthin to laff at.
