Boongie Pepper Sauce - Redefining HOT
By Alice Bain - The Abaconian - 15 August 2002

Marguerite Key-King makes some of the most infamous hot pepper sauce in all of Abaco. "Boongie Pepper" is sold exclusively through the Bahamas Family Market and is one of the most lethal condiments available.

The sauce is an incendiary combination of Bird pepper, Finger pepper, Goat pepper, Christmas pepper and red Scotch Bonnet pepper"with a secret ingredient that Marguerite will not divulge. She dreamed up the recipe shortly after Hurricane Floyd passed over in 1999.

"I got the idea after Floydnobody had any peppers and I had some in my deep freeze, so I whipped up a batch of sauce. We started talking about names, and someone said about the song Who Put the Pepper in the Vaseline"the next line is my boongie"s on fire! So we named it Boongie Pepper. Some people thought the name was obnoxious but most people thought it was funny."

The name might be amusing, but Margeurite"s pepper sauce is deadly serious and not to be trifled with. I personally have witnessed a tourist (his palate undoubtedly accustomed to Crystal"s and other so-called "hot" sauces) load his plate down with a dollop of Boongie Pepper and almost go into convulsions. Natives who know better approach the stuff with extreme caution, using a knife tip or a fork tine to spread a miniscule quantity on their food to bring it up to the desired level of heat.

At one time a reviewer from the New York Times wished to interview Marguerite about her sauce, but she shied away from the limelight. The Abaconian, therefore, brings you the scoop on this legendary local condiment. Try some Boongie Pepper, by all means, but very carefully.