Mojo Picon

Lola Massieu, a wonderful painter and cookbook author from Tenerife, told me that a good mojo picon, or “spicy sauce, ” should include three types of dried red peppers: one mild, one sweet, and a local hot pepper called la pimienta de puta madre. This last is a Canary Islands joke, Lola explained, and refers to “peppers so hot they make you cry and thus evoke an instinctive memory of your mother!”

These hot Canary Islands peppers, which are very small,