There is something wonderfully unreasonable about eating a chili pepper that you know is going to hurt you.
You know what is coming. Your face gets hot – your eyes water. Your forehead starts sweating. Your brain begins bargaining with you. Then, somewhere in the middle of all that discomfort, the endorphins kick in, and you start smiling.
That strange combination of pain, pleasure, flavor, competition, and camaraderie is at the heart of the Berlin Chili Pepper Festival, returning to downtown Berlin Saturday, Aug. 22, from 3 to 8 p.m.
And this year, I have agreed to become part of the spectacle.
I will be one of five contestants in the festival’s Hot Ones-inspired wing trivia competition, where we will eat 10 progressively hotter wings while attempting to answer roughly 30 questions, most of them centered around Delmarva.
I love hot peppers. I love trivia. I am reasonably confident in both of these abilities individually.
Combining them may prove to be a questionable decision.
Toby Gilbert, owner of Gilbert’s Provisions and one of the people responsible for creating the festival, assures me I will be fine.
When I asked how confident he was that I would make it through every wing, he didn’t hesitate.
“If I could say more than 100 percent, I would,” he told me.
I am going to hold him to that.
A Culinary Festival for Berlin
The Chili Pepper Festival began, somewhat unexpectedly, because Berlin had an available liquor license.
Gilbert was serving on the Berlin Chamber of Commerce board when the town was reassessing some of its annual events. Two New Year’s celebrations had been using limited event liquor licenses. When the adult-focused event failed to draw the expected crowd and was discontinued, suddenly there was room on the calendar — and a license available for something new.
Gilbert saw an opportunity.
Berlin had plenty of events centered on music, the arts, and entertainment, but he felt something was missing.
“We were lacking in kind of culinary events,” he said. “Wanting to draw more attention to our food and our farms around here was important to me.”
August provided the answer.
Late August is full-blown pepper season on Delmarva. Jalapeños, shishitos and countless other varieties are pouring out of local fields, while the more intimidating members of the Capsicum family – scorpions, ghost peppers and Carolina Reapers – are reaching maturity as well.
Gilbert grows many of those super-hot peppers himself.
“It just kind of made sense,” he said.
The festival is now entering its third year, and what began as a way to fill a hole in Berlin’s event calendar has quickly grown into something much larger.
Gilbert estimates last year’s festival brought roughly 8,000 to 9,000 people downtown. This year’s event will feature more than 20 vendors, including farms, hot sauce producers, and food vendors traveling from as far north as New York and as far south as South Carolina.
His ultimate ambition is not small.
“I’ve been working really hard to build this out to be the biggest chili fest on the East Coast,” Gilbert said. “I think within the next couple of years we can do that.”
Fun, Exciting, and Silly
When Gilbert and the Chamber began imagining what the festival should become, they looked at chili festivals in Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, and New York.
But one of the more unexpected inspirations was Comic-Con.
Not necessarily the costumes or superheroes, but the attitude.
Gilbert wanted a festival that did not take itself too seriously.
A little spectacle. A little absurdity. A lot of people laughing together.
He described the atmosphere they were trying to create as mellow and non-serious.
When I asked him to describe the festival using three words other than hot, spicy, or chili, he answered:
“Fun. Exciting. Silly.”
That silliness is intentional.
There may be someone walking around dressed as a giant chili pepper, handing out “chili tamer” candies to children. There are plans for a dunk tank that may feature local police officers and politicians.
There will be people cheering.
There will undoubtedly be people heckling.
And there will certainly be people sweating.
In past years, teachers have participated in the competitions with students and families forming cheering sections around them.
That interaction between competitor and spectator is one of the things Gilbert believes makes this festival different from many of Berlin’s other events.
Instead of simply standing and watching a band, the crowd becomes part of what is happening.
“They’re watching people suffer,” Gilbert said, laughing. “They get to laugh at them.”
Unfortunately, in this particular case, “them” now includes me.
Trivia Under Pressure
The wing competition borrows its basic concept from the immensely popular YouTube series “Hot Ones” which Gilbert credits with helping transform hot sauce from a niche obsession into a mainstream cultural phenomenon.
But Berlin’s version moves much faster.
The competition consists of 10 wings coated in progressively hotter sauces and roughly 30 questions. Most of the trivia will be based around Delmarva.
Some questions will be multiple choice.
Some will be determined by audience applause.
And there may even be an artistic challenge or two.
Gilbert admitted the wings weren’t quite hot enough last year.
He intends to correct that mistake.
“People, including yourself, are going to suffer for my misdeeds of last year,” he told me.
Excellent.
Contestants will at least be allowed some relief.
Milkshakes, beer, water, and gloves will be provided.
You can use them or attempt to power through without them.
The contestant left standing with the most points wins the coveted chili hat, a bottle of Pepto-Bismol and, most importantly, glory.
The wing trivia competition begins at 6 p.m.
Earlier in the afternoon, at 4 p.m., six contestants will take part in the chili pepper eating contest.
That competition progresses from relatively mild peppers – potentially starting with shishitos – all the way to Carolina Reapers.
Gilbert is also considering a “fire and ice” element involving horse troughs filled with ice water for contestants.
The rewards there are simple: survival, bragging rights, and glory.
The band Hot Sauce will perform between the competitions and afterward, keeping the festival moving while competitors recover and spectators continue eating, drinking and exploring downtown.
Heat Should Still Taste Good
It would be easy for a chili festival to become an exercise in seeing who can tolerate the most capsaicin.
But Gilbert is a cook, fermenter and food producer first, and he has a much more interesting perspective on hot sauce.
Heat alone isn’t enough.
“Balance in flavor,” he said when I asked what makes a great hot sauce.
He divides certain sauces into the category of what he calls “heat chasers” – products created primarily to hurt you.
They may be spectacular once.
They may become a party trick.
But they aren’t necessarily something you want to keep reaching for at dinner.
Gilbert pointed to the notorious “Hot Ones” sauce Da Bomb as an example. It has become famous precisely because guests often describe the flavor as unpleasant while reacting violently to the heat.
That isn’t what interests him.
At Gilbert’s Provisions, he currently produces six different hot sauces, including Squirrel Rocha, his take on sriracha; Slice Sauce, a pizza hot sauce collaboration with Captain Slice; Mile 785, combining datil and fish peppers; Umami Bomb; Bathman’s Blood; and a berry ghost pepper sauce.
The last one gives a good example of his philosophy.
Yes, it contains ghost peppers.
But it also contains berries from Bennett Orchards, sweet onion, thyme, horseradish, allspice, and coriander seed. Gilbert uses a sous-vide process with enzymes to coax additional sweetness from the fruit.
The goal is not simply to make someone’s mouth hurt.
It is to make them want another bite.
Gilbert himself learned that distinction rather dramatically after eating a raw Carolina Reaper.
It remains the hottest thing he has eaten.
He regrets it.
He loves the pepper’s floral flavor, he told me, but eating an entire raw Reaper is not the best way to experience it.
That may be some of the wisest advice offered in this entire column.
Why Do We Do This to Ourselves?
I have always been fascinated by our relationship with spicy food.
Capsaicin triggers the receptors that normally detect damaging heat. Your body reacts as though something dangerous is happening even though you are, hopefully, perfectly fine.
And yet millions of us keep coming back.
Gilbert thinks he knows why.
“It’s for the glory,” he said. “It’s for the endorphin rush. I think it’s a challenge for themselves.”
That feels right.
Eating very spicy food becomes a small test.
How far can I go?
Can I handle another bite?
Can I remain composed while every nerve ending in my mouth is telling me that I have made a terrible mistake?
Then everyone around you begins laughing, cheering, and suffering together, and suddenly food becomes a communal experience.
Which may explain why hot peppers lend themselves so naturally to a festival.
More Than Peppers
Despite all this talk about Carolina Reapers and suffering, the festival isn’t designed exclusively for chile-heads.
“It’s for everybody,” Gilbert said.
There will be plenty of food and drink that won’t set your mouth on fire.
The festival also spreads beyond the vendors themselves. Restaurants, breweries and other downtown businesses will offer chili-inspired food and beverages throughout Berlin.
The 3 to 8 p.m. schedule is intentional, encouraging visitors to wander downtown, eat, shop, drink and stay into the evening.
That matters.
When I asked Gilbert how important events like this are to downtown businesses, his answer was immediate.
“To be honest, downtown probably couldn’t survive without events like these,” he said. “They’re huge.”
Thousands of people arriving for a festival may discover a restaurant they have never tried, walk into a shop they have never noticed, or drink a beer from a brewery they didn’t know existed.
For visitors coming from Ocean City or elsewhere on Delmarva, Gilbert hopes the festival becomes an introduction to a different side of Berlin.
He wants people to realize the town is “a lot more than just antiques and folk music.”
There are restaurants.
There are breweries.
There are farms.
There are food producers.
And some people know how to have a very good time.
“We’ve got a good little oasis not far from Ocean City,” he said.
When I asked Gilbert to finish one sentence – “The Berlin Chili Pepper Festival is really about …” – he gave me a one-word answer.
“Community.”
That may ultimately be the best explanation for why a festival centered around an ingredient capable of inflicting genuine discomfort can feel so joyful.
We all be sweating. It will be observably hot will definitely laugh at each other and we’ll cheer will definitely be cheering I’ll be risking my life and limb for a great time on Delmarva. I’ll try to remember trivia questions while eating things hot beyond my imagination.
I will report back on how that last part goes.
The Berlin Chili Pepper Festival will take place Saturday, Aug. 22, from 3 to 8 p.m. in downtown Berlin, Maryland. The pepper-eating contest begins at 4 p.m., wing trivia begins at 6 p.m., and Hot Sauce, the band, will perform between the competitions and afterward. The event includes more than 20 vendors, chili-inspired foods and drinks, contests, live music, and activities throughout downtown.
