Some Like It Hot

Happened to watch part of a food show recently and they were talking about hot peppers. I use some middling (probably now considered mild) hot peppers, but have never seen the point of something so hot that it renders you unable to taste much.
On the food show they were talking about the hottest peppers so I took the hint to update myself on them. What used to be really hot has ben surpassed as a sort of arms race took place with several growers trying to come up with the hottest ever pepper.

The current list, from hot to hottest are:

10. Red Savina Habanero 500,000 SHU. It held the title of the World’s Hottest Pepper from 1994 to 2006.

.9. 7 Pot Barrackpore ~1,000,000 SHU

8. 8. Ghost Pepper (Bhut Jolokia) 1,041,427 SHU The first to exceed a million scoville units

7. Naga Viper 1,349,000 SHU - grown in the UK

6. Trinidad Scorpion “Butch T” 1,463,700 SHU - a previous Guinness World Record Holder (2011) from Australia

5. 7 Pot Primo 1,469,000 SHU

4. 7 Pot Douglah 1,853,936 SHU hottest pepper you can find that isn’t red. (it is brown)

3. Trinidad Moruga Scorpion 2,009,231 SHU from Trinidad/Tobago. Watch some poor schmuck eat one on Youtube https://youtu.be/qaHmpwbsYis

2. Carolina Reaper 2,200,000 SHU 200x hotter than a Jalapeno

1. Pepper X 2,693,000 SHU Pepper X is now the World’s hottest Pepper with an average of 2.69 Million Scoville Units and peaks over 3 Million SHU. Not much is known about this pepper since seeds have not been publicly released. So unfortunately you cannot taste or grow Pepper X yourself.

I have never really understood the reasoning of people wanting to achieve record holding foods, especially if they are not safely edible. Nor those who seek eating records like:

Joey Chestnut: 53 soft beef tacos in 10 minutes; 9 pounds, 6 ounces of pulled pork in 10 minutes.

Matt Stonie: 10 pounds of spaghetti in 8 minutes; 14.5 pounds of birthday cake.

Speed Eating: 350 grams of vegan nuggets in one minute (Leah Shutkever).

Unique Records: 13.22 pounds of watermelon in 15 minutes (Buffalo Jim Reeves); 28 ounces of butter in 5 minutes (Don Lerman).

Wikipedia reveals eating contest deaths:

March 2026: A 37-year-old man choked to death during a promotional bun-eating competition in Christiana, Jamaica.

October 2023: Natalie Buss, 37, died after choking during a charity marshmallow-eating contest in Wales.

July 2023: A 25-year-old man in India died after being challenged by friends to eat 150 momos.

October 2021: Madie Nicpon, a 20-year-old Tufts University student, died after choking during a hot dog eating contest.

January 2020: A woman died in Queensland, Australia, after choking during a lamington-eating contest on Australia Day.

August 2019: Dana Hutchings, 41, died after collapsing during an amateur taco-eating contest at a minor league baseball game in Fresno, California.

A couple of years ago, I had some salsa made with Ghost pepper. Yowzah!. It took quite a while to wear off. It was made here in Albuquerque, and the cooks have to wear haz-mat suits when they're cooking up batches for bottling.

And once, I sampled Dave's Atomic Blast (of Dave's Insanity Sauce fame) and had to sign a waiver. I was okay for a while, but when I was halfway down the next aisle at the Fiery Foods Festival, it hit me. I suddenly stopped. I know my face turned red, and I was raining sweat droplets from my forehead onto the floor. I still have the certificate that I survived the tasting.

I occasionally enjoying watching Beard Meets Meat on YouTube, an Englishman who travels the world eating enormous food challenges. It's astounding how much food in a very short time he can stuff into his body. He's always breaking records.

I have a friend who is fond of these insanely hot chiles. He grows Carolina Reapers. Our supermarket for some reason got in a batch of ghost chiles and I bought a package. I gave half of them to my Carolina Reaper friend. The other half went into a batch of Inner Beauty Hot Sauce I was making, in place of half of the usual habaneros. I called this Inner Beauty Ghost Sauce and it was incredibly hot but very tasty. It only took a tiny bit to perk up a bland dish.

-Paul W.

I'm just going to sit over here with Alice Roosevelt Longworth.

I love cooking with habaneros because I value the fruity flavors of C. chinense, but hot for hot's sake is just silly. I eat food that's hot enough to tantalize without being painful. Each has to judge where that threshold lies but eating painfully hot food makes no sense to me.

but hot for hot's sake is just silly.

Not at all. People like heat. Think ordinary pepper - that originally brough welcome heat to the bland foods of the time. Mustard in Britain is hot, horse radish is hot.

Problem is that we all have different tolerances for 'hot'. My mild might be someone else's hot. Tolerances change with familiarity, I used to chop one chili on my lunch, now I use two. Chilis I once found too hot, I now enjoy.

I remember going to a country pub for lunch with a chum may years ago. We both ordered Chili con Carne. I was thinking it was just beef'n'beans, it had nothing spicy about it but when I looked at my friend I could see beads of perspiration forming on his brow. He was panting and said it was too hot too eat.

Anyway,reminds me I should pot on my chili seedlings..

but hot for hot's sake is just silly.

Not at all. People like heat. Think ordinary pepper - that originally brough welcome heat to the bland foods of the time. Mustard in Britain is hot, horse radish is hot.

Problem is that we all have different tolerances for 'hot'. My mild might be someone else's hot. Tolerances change with familiarity, I used to chop one chili on my lunch, now I use two. Chilis I once found too hot, I now enjoy.

I remember going to a country pub for lunch with a chum may years ago. We both ordered Chili con Carne. I was thinking it was just beef'n'beans, it had nothing spicy about it but when I looked at my friend I could see beads of perspiration forming on his brow. He was panting and said it was too hot too eat.

Anyway,reminds me I should pot on my chili seedlings..

Peter, I certainly agree that tolerances vary widely and like you I have a high tolerance. I just question why someone would eat food that is painfully spicy to them. I understand the endorphin rush that is triggered through nociception, so I suppose that is the atttraction, but it still seems a bit silly to me, the same way that riding a roller coaster to get the adrenalin rush also seems silly to me. De gustibus non disputandum.

[Jenise]

I love cooking with habaneros because I value the fruity flavors of C. chinense, but hot for hot's sake is just silly. I eat food that's hot enough to tantalize without being painful. Each has to judge where that threshold lies but eating painfully hot food makes no sense to me.

+1

If you look at the places where chiles and hot food are popular, they're mainly in the "ring of fire", a band across the tropics and semi-tropical areas across the world. The heat from chiles causes one to sweat, which helps in dealing with a hot, humid climate.

There was an excellent Thai restaurant in our area called Bangkok Oriental Cuisine. It served Thai and Laotian dishes. The proprietor was from a village near Bangkok. She said that in her village the women used to sit at a table under a tree to gossip. They ate Thai bird's eye chiles as though they were potato chips (crisps in British English).

The hottest chile I ever ate on its own was a single habanero freshly picked off the plant. Those with me said my face turned beet red. Sweat was dripping off my face. This turned out to be an instructive learning experience regarding the structure of the human digestive tract. I knew exactly where that habanero was.

-Paul W.

There was an excellent Thai restaurant in our area called Bangkok Oriental Cuisine. It served Thai and Laotian dishes. The proprietor was from a village near Bangkok. She said that in her village the women used to sit at a table under a tree to gossip. They ate Thai bird's eye chiles as though they were potato chips (crisps in British English).

And did she keep the restaurant at 100*F and 90% humidity so that you could truly enjoy that spice in the way it was intended?

No. The menu items were marked with one, two, or three flames. There were two 3-flame dishes. I stayed on the 2-flame dishes. One of the 3-flames was larb nur (ground beef salad). I ordered it once and asked her to make it as it would be in Thailand. She asked, "Are you sure?" and I said yes. She said, "Don't worry if it's too hot. It comes with a soup." I knew I was in trouble when the soup arrived and there was a bird's eye chile floating in it. The larb was delicious but blazing hot.

-Paul W.

On board a Scenic river cruise at lunch each day there was a Pasta Station, where a chef heated up pasta and added the sauce.

One day the menu listed 'Rigatoni all Arrabiata, spicy tomato sauce'. But the sauce was plain tomato: it didn’t contain any chilli that is a requirement of Arrabiata. The chef said some people didn’t like spiciness so they just served a plain tomato sauce. I suggested that people who didn’t like spice wouldn’t ask for Arrabiata especially when the menu said it was spicy. He shrugged.

On board a Scenic river cruise at lunch each day there was a Pasta Station, where a chef heated up pasta and added the sauce.

One day the menu listed 'Rigatoni all Arrabiata, spicy tomato sauce'. But the sauce was plain tomato: it didn’t contain any chilli that is a requirement of Arrabiata. The chef said some people didn’t like spiciness so they just served a plain tomato sauce. I suggested that people who didn’t like spice wouldn’t ask for Arrabiata especially when the menu said it was spicy. He shrugged.

That sounds kind of like life here in the American Midwest, Peter. I've heard people here complain about paprika and/or black pepper being "too spicy" for them.

On board a Scenic river cruise at lunch each day there was a Pasta Station, where a chef heated up pasta and added the sauce.

One day the menu listed 'Rigatoni all Arrabiata, spicy tomato sauce'. But the sauce was plain tomato: it didn’t contain any chilli that is a requirement of Arrabiata. The chef said some people didn’t like spiciness so they just served a plain tomato sauce. I suggested that people who didn’t like spice wouldn’t ask for Arrabiata especially when the menu said it was spicy. He shrugged.

I always liked to joke that Minnesotans consider mayo to be a spice.

When I lived in Minneapolis for a while, Heinz came out with a "Spicy Ketchup," so I bought a bottle. Got home and tasted it. Didn't notice any heat. Then I got serious and sampled a larger portion with a spoon, closed my eyes, and tried hard to taste the slightest flicker of heat. Nothing. It tasted exactly the same as regular ketchup to me.

We've been on some cruises over the last few years in which the average age was well above mine (which is nothing to sneeze at) and nothing has any significant heat to it, whatever the dish would normally require. Most of the food is pretty significantly undersalted, too, even for me. It's otherwise generally been excellent, so you just need to have the salt shaker handy and to know where they keep the hot sauce when needed.

We've been on some cruises over the last few years in which the average age was well above mine (which is nothing to sneeze at) and nothing has any significant heat to it, whatever the dish would normally require.

I don't expect any significant heat in any dish served in a public setting, but to advertise a dish as Arrabiata and to give a warning next to it that it is spicy then to admit it has zero spicing, that's it's plain tomato sauce is a new low.

Most of the food is pretty significantly undersalted,

Since the doc told me to cut my salt intake I slowly reduced and reduced the amount of salt in my cooking so I now only add salt when making bread, scone & Yorkies, so I don't find any restaurant dish undersalted. I sometimes add salt to chips (which I rarely have) and always add salt and copious amounts of malt vinegar to chippie fish'n'chips (which I very rarely have).

We've been on some cruises over the last few years in which the average age was well above mine...

I had that happen on a bus tour. They were all in the back merrily discussing brands of hearing aids and swapping blood pressure pills. It was kinda funny, actually.

. It was kinda funny, actually

Won't be when you get there.

I don't expect any significant heat in any dish served in a public setting, but to advertise a dish as Arrabiata and to give a warning next to it that it is spicy then to admit it has zero spicing, that's it's plain tomato sauce is a new low.

Yes, this is pretty much my complaint. There are dishes in which some heat is an essential aspect, and it's weird and disappointing when there is absolutely none to be found.

Since the doc told me to cut my salt intake I slowly reduced and reduced the amount of salt in my cooking so I now only add salt when making bread, scone & Yorkies, so I don't find any restaurant dish undersalted. I sometimes add salt to chips (which I rarely have) and always add salt and copious amounts of malt vinegar to chippie fish'n'chips (which I very rarely have).

We figure that this is why the food on the cruises seems pretty much unsalted. Given the age group, there are likely a lot of people onboard who have to keep their salt intake to a minimum. It's not as much of an issue as the lack of heat as there are salt shakers or grinders available on every table whereas the hot sauce is harder to find.

[Jenise]

I had that happen on a bus tour. They were all in the back merrily discussing brands of hearing aids and swapping blood pressure pills. It was kinda funny, actually.

My experience is that it's the men talking about hearing aids while the women brag about their grandchildren. I have no interest in either! I don't know which is more boring (presuming you have neither, like me).

But it's all going to get worse. We're all getting older, and just this week my brother entered the Men With Heart Problems Club. And whatever changes his life changes mine. Wish he hadn't waited until it was almost too late to stop reaching for the salt shaker almost before he tastes his food.

It is indeed just getting worse. I was told yesterday that one of the guys from our home winemaking group (back in the day) has been in the hospital for weeks now with heart issues and will likely need a heart transplant to survive.

As for salt, I salt to my preference when cooking, which results in food that my wife nearly always finds to be undersalted. This is probably good as there has been heart disease in my family while in hers, everyone can eat bacon for breakfast, bratwurst for lunch and fried fish for dinner 365 days a year and live to be 100 without any chronic health issues.

[Jenise]

As for salt, I salt to my preference when cooking, which results in food that my wife nearly always finds to be undersalted. This is probably good as there has been heart disease in my family while in hers, everyone can eat bacon for breakfast, bratwurst for lunch and fried fish for dinner 365 days a year and live to be 100 without any chronic health issues.

She's lucky! I'm unaware of any heart disease in my family though a family curse of gout is a testament to our love of a rich diet. My father died at the age of 91 without ever caving on his belief that Jack Daniels and cheese are health food. Chris' skyrocketing blood pressure this week is a mystery, though perhaps not so much when you consider that he's been on BP meds for years. He attributes that to his tendency to be a sponge for stress, while refusing to see the (obvious to me) connection between his predelictions for cream and sugar in his morning coffee and late-night salty snacks.

I'm actually proud to report that we had three couples in their 70's and one in their 50's for dinner last night without the words "blood pressure" ever getting mentioned except to explain why Chris and John couldn't join us.

As for salt, I salt to my preference when cooking, which results in food that my wife nearly always finds to be undersalted.

This is the case in my household, too. I do the majority of the cooking and both my wife and son find it necessary to salt their food (which they often do without tasting it first). My wife's blood pressure is still in the normal range, even as she enters her mid 60s, so she has little motivation to change her behavior.

This is the case in my household, too. I do the majority of the cooking and both my wife and son find it necessary to salt their food (which they often do without tasting it first)...

This is tricky stuff! I guess you all know each other well enough by now so nobody gets offended..

Our house is the opposite, I do the cooking and my wife tends to find it too salty. I make fun of her mild German palate, but it's all part of the negotiation...