Hot weather good for hot chilies

The chilies in Sharon´s huerta, or garden, are going great guns as the sun beats down. Regular watering and the hot weather obviously suits them.

These chilies are grown from seeds sent from a noted expert in hot stuff from Suffolk. When the little fruit (are they a fruit or a veg?) start to form they are yellowish. Then they turn a deep purple and gradually develop into the familiar deep red.

These chilies have been going for a couple of years now and they are ideal for making chili sherry. This was an old favourite in Gentlemen’s Clubs in the former British colonies Out East and it is very easy to make. All you day is take the hottest little chilies you can find and press as many as you can into a cut-glass decanter, or any bottle with a tight stopper or screw top. Then carefully pour in sherry until the chilies are drowned and the bottle is full. Leave for about three months and it will be ready, although the longer the better.

Then keep the decanter or bottle handy on the table so it is always handy. In the East, the correct drill was to scatter a few drops of the brew into your bowl of soup, holding the stopper so that the chilies themselves did not come out. However, chili sherry also goes well with noodles and rice dishes or anything that needs a bit of livening up.

The finest chili plant ever seen grew on the island to the southeast of Hong Kong out in the South China Sea – Waglan. This was originally a customs and weather station in Chinese Imperial times. It is shown on an 1810 map of “Macau Roads” produced by the East India Company. Many of the officers of this service were British. Later Waglan became the responsibility of the colonial authorities of Hong Kong. The station would, and does, feed meteorological information ashore and at night the powerful light sweeps for miles.

Today, sadly, everything is automated. But in the good old days the station was manned and one lighthouse man loved his work. He would stay on the island for about two months at a time, enjoying the peace, and then would be given a week´s leave ashore. He lived in the crowded Aldrich Bay typhoon shelter at Sai Wan Ho with his Chinese wife and a large brood of children. After a few days, the noise became too much for him and he would go off with his fishermen friends for some peace and quiet until it was time to report again for duty at Waglan.

Ten or fifteen years ago we visited the island. The old lighthouse man has his grave there and he rests in eternal peace while the waves of the South China Sea lap at the rocks below. The grave was shaded by an enormous chili tree. Not a plant or a bush, but a tree. The fruits were eight to ten inches long and we collected many of them. Later, the seeds were dried and then planted. For years we enjoyed these wonderful chilies each year until, sadly, the stock of seeds ran out, we moved, left Hong Kong.

Somewhere in our files are photographs of Waglan Island, and of the grave. When, or if, these every turn up it will be possible to give the name of the lighthouse man.

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©Phillip Bruce 2009.