Finding a place for an open dialogue regarding spicy food is hard for people like me. Mostly due to lack of knowledge or familiarity with one thing or another and especially because most things online point to attention seekers (your typical Youtube videos or pepper eating contests or whatever) rather than passionate (or potentially “crazy”) people. So, I suppose you could say I am writing this to share my story in the hope that some might find it a starting point to have that discussion.
Heat in this context is formally measured in Scoville Heat Units (SHU) – named after Wilbur Scoville’s “Scoville Organoleptic Test” used to measure a given chili pepper’s relative heat. There is quite some variance between one pepper and the next (sort of like the Richter scale for earthquakes).
For reference (as you can see in the chart above) the Bhut Jolokia pepper (more commonly known as the ghost pepper) used to be known as the world’s hottest pepper – measuring out at a maximum SHU of 1.2 million. That was until the scorpion pepper was measured at up to 1.5 million. The hottest pepper in the world today is the Carolina Reaper which was bred in South Carolina by Ed Currie. Its maximum SHU is 2.2 million which is around half of U.S. grade pepper spray or bear spray.
My story begins at the Thai Chili pepper (or Birdseye Pepper) which is most common in grocery stores and hot sauces (with heat diluted with vinegar and other items for flavour). The Thai Chili pepper’s SHU is approximately 75,000-100,000. Which is extremely hot for anyone who finds jalapenos hot (at approximately 5,000). I used to eat at work with people who always took a bite of a Thai Chili pepper with every bite of food and they dared me to try it. It was hot at first, but before long, I was doing the same thing even at home by myself. I loved the feeling of the heat so much I’d go out of my way to eat things just so I could eat the peppers. After time, the Thai Chili peppers were no longer hot. This is where my never ending quest really began as I had to research and educate myself. I went to the grocery store and bought some Scotch Bonnet peppers which SHU max out at 350,000-400,000. This was a HUGE leap from 100,000 to 400,000 so it took me a while to get used to the heat, but as time went by, I found myself able to eat bite with bite to the whole pepper per bite to no longer feeling the heat from them.
It was time to move on from grocery stores and find some ghost peppers. At the time, the hottest pepper in the world. The jump from Scotch Bonnet to ghost peppers didn’t seem as steep as Thai Chili to Scotch Bonnet and before I really got into ghost peppers, I had come across the scorpion pepper which had just become the world’s hottest pepper and not long after that, the buzz was all about the Carolina Reaper. My then neighbor helped me out with growing Carolina Reapers and before long, I was eating entire Carolina Reaper peppers with 3 or 4 bites of food…then…they were no longer hot anymore…it was like eating bell peppers. What was I to do to get that heat?
EXTRACT!
I went online and bought me some 2 million Scoville extract and ate it with a toothpick with each bite of food. After time, that toothpick became half a spoon. Not long after that, it was no longer hot so I went online and got me some 5 million Scoville extract and ate it with a toothpick with each bite of food. After time, that toothpick became half a spoon. Not long after that, it was no longer hot so I went online and got me some 9 million Scoville extract and ate it with a toothpick with each bite of food. After time, the toothpick became half a spoon and guess what?! It’s no longer hot for me…
Now I am online looking up 16 million Scoville pure Capsaicin crystals and wondering if I really even need to make that leap? Will I even notice the difference at this point? Is my journey over or will the heatseeker in me look to find out?
All I can really say is to leave your milk-drinking, ice cream eating Youtube videos and your 2 million Scoville pepper eating contests at the door prior to commenting…
I need you to bring the real heat, people.
chocolate bhut is about as hot as im willing to go…
the heat on the way in is fine..
its the way out that gets me
THIS! You get used to it as long as you don’t take too long of a break from the heat…because that ring of fire is unbearable, I try to keep up with the eating habits daily.
but don’t you have to stop at some point?
My coworkers once decided to go out and eat ghost pepper wings on a Fri. I joined them thinking I’ll give this a shot. I suddenly had nightmares of acid reflux and scorching dumps so I wimped out.
My coworkers who ate the stuff (except for one guy, but he’s Vietnamese and can take any kind of pepper heat–your ability to endure this stuff reminds me a lot of his love of hot sauce) were howling the Monday after about the pain from acid reflux, and the pain of sitting after the napalm dumps they endured. One coworker said that someone would have to pay him $1000 to do it again.
…I realise you’re way past Dave’s Insanity Sauce at this point but how are you at stripping waxed floors & driveway grease stains?
Once you get to 3 million Scovilles, you have to sign waivers that you’re legally responsible for anyone who you allow to try it and whatever happens to them. I import extract from the US so I am legally responsible in whichever state I import them from, as well as, in Canada/Ontario.
It ends up being 5 waivers to sign…so I don’t cater to hotshots who bug me to try them thinking they can do it, although it is quite tempting sometimes.
Not for nothing, but I feel like this is, to some, a marketable commodity. Do you compete in any of these contests? Seems like you could earn some cash for this once society rebounds.
Some try to convince me, but it isn’t something I’m really interested in.
Freak.
I had a girlfriend whose mother was from Thailand. She used to sit at her kitchen counter, reading a magazine and eating Thai chiles like they were pickles. Her youngest daughter (about 8 I think) was pestering her mother for one and finally her mother said she could have one but she must not cry. Her face got read and her eyes watered quite a bit, but that little 8-year old took that pepper like a champ.
For my part I used to enjoy hot food for the sake of the heat, but as time as gone on I’ve shifted to desiring the flavor as much as the heat. Which is why my go-to chile is the Hatch (also known as the NM Green or NM Red).
There is a benefit to it all that makes it easy to distinguish tastes. I still prefer the scotch bonnet for taste, but there is no heat in them for me.
Is this a sex thing?
Chasing endorphins, pushing physical limits, getting all hot under the collar.
It feels like this is a sex thing.
What did Freud call it, an oral fixation? That.
Seriously though. Pure capsaicin is pointless. The enzymes in your mouth easily break it down and carry it away in your saliva. So the heat is barely there for any length of time. And it’s basically flavorless. So not even worth the trouble from a “things you might enjoy the taste of” perspective. It basically is a sex thing at that point. One frenzied minute followed by disappointment ;D
I’ve never related it to sex, but it supposedly helps with that sort of thing?
Note to self: do not have sex with ConstantColors 🙂
I used to love super hot food when I smoked cigarettes. I think my tastebuds were numb. I can’t do very hot at all anymore.
I can’t tolerate anything in a sniffing distance of that. no way. the hottest peppers I eat are anchos (dried poblanos) which are 2,000 shu. I might, MIGHT, try guajillo which are 8,000 shu. I find jalapeno, which are 10,000 shu, and hot bananas, which are 15,000 shu, intolerable!
carolina reapers (2,200,000 shu)? stay away from me!
all those shu measurements come from:
https://pepperheadsforlife.com/the-scoville-scale/
that page has measurements for 32 pages of peppers!