Turning Up The Heat

Mark Cable’s Quest for the Perfect Salsa…

While Mark Cable was growing up in San Diego County, he developed a taste for Mexican food, especially the handmade salsas he came to love. By the time he settled in Redding, he had long since given up hope for finding a salsa that measured up to the flavors he lost with his youth. He knew neither the markets nor the restaurants in this town would yield such treasure.

But one day, he seized on a new hope. He would make his own salsa.

Many years later, broadcast personality Logan Kane of 106X saw an intriguing post on Instagram. A guy who sold something called Mark’s Salsa was announcing his hottest batch of Crazy Sauce ever. Kane sensed a perfect fit for his radio show “Foodie Friday,” where he and friends sampled hot delicacies and commented on the air.

“It’s about us just eating stuff that’s too hot, like stuff you should never eat,” he says with a laugh. “That’s how I met Mark. He came into the morning show with not only his Crazy Sauce, but also each of his other salsas, and we had a great morning trying salsa, because his stuff was so, so good.”

Take note, this man set on enduring oral inferno remembers the taste. Normally, a condiment containing the hottest peppers terrorizes one’s taste buds, and flavor rarely makes it into the critique. To Kane and his buds, Mark’s Salsa was something else.

“It was certainly hot, but the first bite I’m like, holy cow, this is an almost fruity-tasting sauce,” Kane says. “Up until then, anytime that I had scorpion peppers, it was always just for the hot stuff. With Mark’s, I actually got to taste the flavor of the pepper without a complete scorch in the mouth. I found out I like scorpion pepper a lot more than I knew I did.”

After that, Mark’s salsas and his hot sauces grew hotter. Not only from the addition of ghost peppers, but also from a jump in sales. Aficionados of flaming tonsils can now find assorted flavors on shelves in local grocery stores, Saturdays at the Redding Farmers Market or directly from Cable’s certified kitchen downtown.

The star of salsa himself claims he’s not a fan of his hotter offerings. “I had some friends encouraging me to make it hotter for them,” Cable says. “So I made it stupidly hot to the point where I wouldn’t eat it, and they absolutely loved it.”

He ensures his less-adventurous customers they can enjoy a flavorful salsa with a lesser risk of spontaneous combustion, as do he and his wife. “My original is my medium. It is clearly my number-one seller,” he notes. “Some people like it milder, so I have a what I call
salsa verde.” After the medium, he turns up the heat by adding habaneros.

Cable emphasizes his recipe is his own, and every batch of salsa is crafted by his own hand, with some help by knife and industrial blender. He takes his time to examine each ingredient, looking for imperfections he knows just where to find after years of experience.

That experience began with a first try that didn’t quite make the Mark. “I didn’t care for it that much. It was actually kind of gross,” he recalls. “So I changed out a few of the different peppers, the quantities and things like that. Gotta make it a little bit thicker. A little bit of this, little bit of that. I started writing recipes down, and the fourth or fifth recipe, I’m like, OK, this is the one we’re keeping.”

His first opportunity to market his work came at a Chamber of Commerce mixer hosted by Home Helpers. “So most of these people started encouraging me, wanted to buy some from me. And I’m like, OK, hold on, slow down. It’s not even a business yet!” he says with a laugh. “It really didn’t start taking off until probably a year and half later, after I joined the farmers market.”

As well as finding Mark’s Salsa in his booth at this Saturday gathering alongside City Hall, those intrigued will find taste and torrid in containers displayed at Redding’s Orchard Nutrition and Farmer’s Marketplace in Shasta Lake. The kitchen to visit downtown is Sizzle, which rents certified food prep space to Cable. He also sets up his booth at events in other towns, such as Weaverville and Shingletown.

Within the past six months, Cable has added dry spice packets to his inventory, and he envisions a couple of more ways to fill his 10- to 12-hour workdays. First, he’s working on a request by a food vendor to make something “special” for them. The other is setting up and selling from his own food truck.

Cable credits his service in the U.S. Marines for his work ethic and discipline that keeps him on task. His pride in The Corps shows on every label: Veteran-Owned Business. The demand for his flavorful fare keeps him busy six days a week. Apparently, many a soul in our county believes they have too much healthy tissue in their mouth.

In this Field of Dreams, burn it and they will come. •

Mark’s Salsa, hot sauces and spices
Hand-Crafted by Mark Cable
1440 Placer St., Redding
By appointment (530) 355-9005
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