According to the Shahnameh (the Persian Book of Kings and the mythology of Iran), shortly after the formation of the world, a child named Zahhak was born to the king of the world. Zahhak was very greedy and naive. Eblis, the devil, came to court in disguise and convinced Zahhak to overthrow his father and claim his “rightful” throne. After sowing this initial ideas, Zahhak kills his father and ascends the throne. On his coronation day, Eblis returned again in a different disguise and under the guise of celebration he kisses Zahhak on the shoulders. On the spot of Eblis' kisses, two snakes subsequently grew. Eblis tells Zahhak that he must do as the snakes desired, for there was no way to remove them. For eternity, Zahhak would have to feed his snakes two people a day. One day several years later, Zahhak had a prophetic dream of the man that would finally end his reign of terror. In fear, Zahhak summons all the wise men to his throne room to sign a document saying he is a fair ruler, one who shouldn’t fear a rebellion.
All the wise men, fearing Zahhak’s wrath, agree to sign the document, except for one man, Kaveh, a local blacksmith. Zahhak had taken his son and was planning to feed the boy to his snakes that night. Kaveh, in his outrage, gathered anyone who would listen to his grieving about his lost son and the evil king and headed off to find the man from Zahhak’s dreams. Kaveh returns with Fereydun who leads an army against Zahhak, chases him out of his palace and capital, and subsequently imprisons him and all of his evil, demonic followers.
Similar to the story of Kaveh and Zahhak, our goal with Kaveh’s Hot Sauce is to clear the evil out of our favorite hot sauces. All three flavors are made without artificial preservatives, with under ten ingredients each. All ingredients are organic and locally sourced to reduce our carbon footprint and empower smaller businesses. Besides our commitment to our community and environment, our goal for Kaveh’s Hot Sauce is to combine aspects of Persian cuisine to American cuisine. Iran has no spicy foods at all in its cultural dishes, whereas American food often includes spice. Despite their lack of spice, Persian food often includes herbal, aromatic, and even spice-y food, including a classic mealtime topping called torshi, made from fermenting and pickling garlic and various fruits and vegetable. We have incorporated various fermentation and pickling methods throughout the different recipes of our three sauces.
