The same goes for the recipes Tom Fagan brings out on the Fourth of July.
His ingredients include strontium, calcium, sodium, barium, copper, magnesium and aluminum. So when Fagan says if he shared his secrets, he’d have to kill you, things turn briefly awkward.
His recipes are for big-time fireworks.
Fagan served up a tasty menu for the 17th consecutive year Friday night at the Rozzi’s Famous Fireworks show at the Clark County Fairgrounds.
Some of the same dishes will be served at Vandalia tonight and in Beavercreek and Fairborn on Monday.
Those who have been to Springfield’s Holiday in the City programs have had a taste, too.
Making fireworks is “just like cooking,” Fagan said. “We have certain recipes to make blue, green red.”
Those colors are blended and compressed and combined into pellets called stars, though they come in different shapes.
“Some are round, some are barrel shaped, some we roll in a tumbler and let them dry, then we roll them again in another recipe,” Fagan said.
Part of the mix is a filler to control the order and timing of the reactions.
“As it burns, you’ll see the red, then it will start to burn toward the center, then you’ll see the green,” he said.
The recipe also takes into account how to scatter the colors like paint splashes across the sky.
That’s determined by “how you place the stars inside the shell,” Fagan said. “You can’t just load them in.”
Like a good ravioli, added Fagan, “It’s all done by hand.”
And because the loaders are fond of their hands, safety is uppermost in their minds. It’s why Fagan says most folks should stay out of the fireworks kitchen.
“Some people have no idea what they’re messing with” he said. “The static electricity in your body” can set off some chemicals. “You’ve got to be really careful about what you’re dealing with.”
Although Fagan said Rozzi’s has used some recipes for “umpteen years,” when a new recipe comes along, they keep an eye on it for tweaking.
“There’s always new stuff coming out,” he said, and in recent years colors have grown more intense.
Just as a handful of people at Rozzi’s handle the fireworks chemistry, he said. Others are “more into the show, how to design the show.” Others serve essentially as fireworks choreographers, setting the fireworks to music.
But everyone who does it for long has the bug.
“You either love fireworks or you don’t,” said the man who has helped cook them up and serve them for nearly 30 years. “There’s a saying in the business that ‘He or she that has smelled the smoke is never free again.’ ”
Tom Fagan loves the smell of his own cooking.
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