Carolina Reaper is the hottest pepper on earth, reaching 2,200,000 SHU. Photo / Michael Craig
Carolina Reaper is the hottest pepper on earth, reaching 2,200,000 SHU. Photo / Michael Craig
OPINION
The Ghost Pepper Chilli is no friend of the male crotch. I found this out the hard way last Wednesday afternoon.
The Scoville scale measures hot pepper heat. It tracks the amount of capsaicin and assigns it a rating in Scoville Heat Units (SHUs). Capsaicin is a chemical irritantthat produces a burning sensation.
Chilli plants developed high levels of capsaicin to stop land animals eating their fruit. Hot chillis hurt us but not birds. The plant wants fliers because they scatter seeds over a wider area. Ironically, over time, we humans grew to crave the very poison meant to deter us.
Carolina Reaper is the hottest pepper on Earth, reaching 2,200,000 SHU. Jalapeños, by comparison, only make it to 6000. At the 2018 world hot chilli eating competition, a Reaper hospitalised a 34-year-old man. A CT scan showed the arteries in his brain drastically constricted. He was lucky not to suffer a heart attack.
It was a Ghost Pepper that attacked my downstairs.
It was a 1,041,427 SHU Ghost Pepper that attacked my downstairs. The Ghost Pepper isn't as hot as the Reaper, but it's still very dangerous. One burnt a 3cm hole in a man's oesophagus at a 2016 chilli eating competition. If a chilli can burn a hole in a man's throat, you do not want it in your pants.
My hot pepper journey began a few months ago when my 12-year-old son decided to grow chilli plants. I suggested a mild chilli like the Padrón pepper at 2500 SHU or the banana pepper at 500. He went for the hottest peppers on earth—the aforementioned Carolina Reaper, The Ghost Pepper and the evil 1,800,000 SHU Red Scorpion.
Growing chilli is easy. You buy them at Kings Plant Barn, throw them in potting mix, place them in direct sunlight and water them every day. The Red Scorpions ripened first, and my boy picked three biggies. He was hoping to cook up a chilli so hot it would make his older brother cry.
Things went wrong immediately. My son bit on the pepper for a joke. It was like a bomb had gone off. The poor boy screamed, ran upstairs, shoved his face under a cold shower, ran back down, poured 2 litres of milk into his face and slumped to the floor in a state of shock. He hardly moved for a full hour. There was no chilli for dinner that night.
A week later, he tried again, this time with the slightly less lethal 1.1 million SHU Ghost Pepper. I took over Health and Safety. We wore dishwashing gloves and rinsed our hands before and after cutting the chilli. It wasn't enough.
Things spiralled out of control when I visited the bathroom. Residual Ghost Pepper had survived the hand washing. Scalding hot chilli made it on to the most vulnerable part of my body.
At the 2018 world hot chilli eating competition, a Carolina Reaper hospitalised a 34-year-old man. Photo / Michael Craig
It's hard to put into words the pain and horror I experienced that day. The first seven thoughts that come to mind are lava, needles, acid, drilling, burning, regret, shame. I used a glass of milk in a new and unhygienic way. Eventually, I recovered enough to sit down and eat the finished pot of chilli with the family. It was mind-meltingly hot but delicious.
This weekend we plan to ramp things up even further. My 12-year-old has plans to brew a demonic triple threat pot of chilli. The Red Scorpion, the Carolina Reaper and the Ghost Pepper all in one. A kg of premium beef mince, two onions, three cans of differently cut tomatoes, cumin, red kidney beans, garlic and three dangerously evil peppers. I'm scared but knowledge is power and we've learnt a lot in the last few weeks. For one thing, I won't be visiting the bathroom a day either side of the cook-up.
