ConAgra Foods

It’s the first thing on the label, underneath the name:

Made with pork, chicken and beef. Artficially colored. Pickled in artificially colored vinegar pickle.

Make no bones about it (usually), this is a pickled sausage, and wholly unashamed of it. It’s not a meal, it may not entirely be food, and it’s a hell of a caustic snack. Really, the only reason to buy one is if you’re standing at the checkout counter and suddenly you think, “Uh, I should get something to eat with this beer.”

Which, we must admit, happens a lot.

Beyond good or bad, then, is the more important question: is the Tijuana Mama 300% hotter, as the label claims? We chose the Fire Cracker Giant Red Hot, dubbed “The Original” on its label, also by ConAgra Foods, for comparison.

Both are unnaturally red, although the Tijuana has a browner, more Tabasco-y color, as well as being fatter and shorter than the Fire Cracker. At first bite, they taste very similar: briny, tangy and spongy, like something you might find washed up on the beach.

It’s in the aftertaste that the Tijuana pulls away and reveals its burn—a slow, building, toxic scald, which is manageable one bite at a time, but becomes choking if attempted all at once.

But can it really claim 300% hotter? Since most of its heat still comes from being pickled, like its brother, we don’t think so; 225% hotter, tops.