Mama Africa Pili Pili Sauce

5 oz bottle - Utah

Pili-Pili - Mama Africa
You smell it, you taste it, you love it!

Pili-Pili This is an African hot pepper sauce with a story. Like many foods we carry (Like Blacklick) have a cool history.

Cathy, who has a world traveled history, started her Pili-Pili adventure when she was just 5 years old. The Pili-Pili she had was her family recipe, a recipe that is 5 generations long and which was born in the Kasai region of the Congo.

She has lived in Europe, Africa, and California. After a 25 year career as an interior designer, Cathy ultimately ended up making food in a farmers market in Utah.

At the market she would add a side dollop of her homemade Pili-Pili to her dishes of chicken, fish and rice. When customers came back for more, specifically more Pili-Pili she knew it was time to bottle up the family history.

To her this hot sauce builds up like “stairs”, “surely and gradually”. Although, I am not sure that is the case for someone who doesn’t have hot everyday.

This is what I found.

To the eye it's an orange yellow color and it has bits of stuff in it.

To the nose it has a wonderful essence. Perhaps it's the garlic vegetable oil onion vinegar combination with a hint of heat from the pepper that gives it this wonderful enticing smell.

Pouring out from the small hole at the top of the bottle the liquid is a bit lumpy and thicker than some hot sauces. More creaminess, less liquidly.

Once poured from the bottle into a spoon, the garlic is perhaps the predominant smell that's identifiable. Smelling it and you might not think it's a hot sauce, instead, perhaps a serious salad dressing from a jar.

To the tongue you get confirmation of the garlic, just a minutia of a second before the heat jumps through your mouth, skipping over every part, from the top of the tongue to the sides of the cheeks, straight to the back of the throat in an explosion of tiny little needles pulsating away.

This African hot pepper sauce doesn't strike you as hot in the sense that other hot sauces do. Instead it is a heat that creates flames within your mind. It's a trick (via your taste buds) and it’s a good one.

Swirl the flavors around with your tongue and you can get the garlic, the onion and more. It’s quite fun!

And then somewhere in that timeframe, it explodes, this time at the top of the roof of my mouth and perspiration expels from my head underneath the hairline (which thankfully I still have one) and my pores are cleaning themselves out.

Hard to explain, what fun! From the nose to the toes, it explodes!

Mama Africa Pili Pili sauce is another good hot element to add to your essential pantry.

From the back of the bottle: My mom, Mamy Monique Mpunga wa Muamba Miwa Tshilombo, Ntita Mukai, is the best cook ever. Coming from the Bakwa Bilonda Tribe in the Kasai Region of the Congo (DRC), thousands of miles away, in The heart of Africa, she inherited these recipes from her Mom, Mamu Mtongo wa Mfwamba, who we called "Mimi". In 1966 my mom refined this beautiful authentic African salsa that we call "pili-pili" or "Ndunga".

Mom will never eat without Pili-Pili on her table. She carries a jar with her at all times. Mama says "pili-pili will keep you warm and bless you with vitamins." She says also that the mosquitoes will never such your spicy blood. In fact, Pili-Pili is one of the hottest hot sauces that can be found on Earth. It is so hot, if you are in trouble you may have to call the fire fighters!

ingredients: chili peppers, onion, garlic, vegetable oil, water, salt, vinegar