I Wonder if I'll See Johnny Cash?

[Tuckerfan]

Some years back, there was a news story about Bhut Jolokia peppers (AKA "ghost peppers") and my immediate thought was "WANT!" After all, they're probably the closest we'll ever get to Guatemalan Insanity Peppers any time soon.

Naturally, I knew when I read the story, since they'd just been discovered (more or less), it'd be some time before I could hope to buy any (and given where I live, the odds of plants being for sale locally were basically nil). I'd occasionally do searches on the intarwebs to see if anyone had them for sale, but either came up empty, or the sources seemed to be less than trustworthy.

Realizing that it was getting close to time to think about putting in a garden again, I did some poking around to see what the odds of my being able to get some plants/seeds were. I noticed that some folks are now selling sauces they claim to be made with the peppers, but that's just not the same. Plus I've got some Latino neighbors and I figure it'll be entertaining to see the look on their faces when they try one.

This place seemed to have some good reviews and they offered to throw in a couple of whole peppers if you ordered 65 seeds. So I placed an order with them on the 8th of this month, and waited. Yesterday, it arrived. I didn't have time to open the box and check the contents until today.

It was somewhat disappointing. There were no peppers, but plenty of seeds. I checked the paperwork to see if there was an explanation as to why the peppers were missing, but didn't find one. I did fire off a polite email asking for details. I then got a couple of small pots and placed a few seeds in each (the seeds are warm to the touch, BTW, with an orangish tinge to them), watered them, and then marked on my calendar when I could expect them to germinate (the end of next month), as well as when I could hope to harvest any peppers (middle of May [Yes, I do have a grow light, and will be growing them indoors.]). Then, I decided to pop one of the seeds in my mouth, to try and get an idea of how hot they are.

There was a flash of burning, equal to, or greater than you'd get from eating a whole habanero, only this was concentrated in one small area (namely where the seed was touching my tongue). It dissipated fairly quickly, leaving the tip of my tongue feeling like it'd been scalded by hot coffee and a taste that was smoky with hints of something like broccoli very faintly, and some gentle warmth. Its taken some 30 minutes for the heat from that one seed to fully fade from my mouth.

I must admit that there's something addicting about the intensity of the pepper, and I spent several minutes debating if I should pop a second seed in my mouth after chewing and swallowing the first one. I do it, and discover that despite my worries that I might over-stated the level of heat, I have, in fact, understated it. You simply cannot grasp what it is like to have one of these things in your mouth without trying it. I have a cold, clammy sweat on parts of my body, I am unable to sit still, and have to stop writing this periodically to pound on the table or get up and move around. I desperately want to wimp out and try and find something to cut the heat, but the endorphin rush is, with no exaggeration whatsoever, a religious experience. I cannot wait to wrap my lips around a whole pepper and chew that sucker up to see what the rush is like.

[The Original An Gadaí]

That reminds me of the time I had a hot vindaloo.

[Revs]

Just remember not to kick the turtle.

[Zuul]

That sounds fascinating, but a bit too intense for me! Habañero is about as hot as I'll go, because while I do love spicey peppers and the endorphin rush you mention, I also need to enjoy the flavor. And it's really hard to do that when tears are in my eyes and I'm twitching.

Do keep us updated, though!

[Tuckerfan]

So, after a bit of back and forth emailing with the nursery, I finally got my whole peppers the other day. (The fellow at the nursery apologized profusely for the mistakes and threw in double the amount of peppers, so its all good.)

Now, I'd been debating on what to do with the peppers, and hadn't quite made up my mind, but in looking at them tonight, I noticed that they were starting to look a little past their prime, so I figured, "What the heck?" and decided to chow down on one. This was a mistake. Mind you, I wasn't a complete idiot about the matter (sort of).

I picked the smallest pepper, cut it in half, pulled the seeds out of one half (not only to save, but because generally the seeds are the hottest part of a pepper). I then popped the pepper in my mouth, started chewing and went to the bathroom, took a leak, and washed my hands (the order of these facts is important).

The pepper presented itself with a distinct feeling of heat as I chewed on it, but was in general manageable for a few moments. Then, quite suddenly, it got really hot. Not just "uncomfortably warm" hot, but, and I speak from experience on this, "Oh my Gawd, I'm getting a third degree burn from this!" hot.

I spat the pepper out and proceeded to try and flush the oil out of my mouth. I took a swig of whisky and that didn't help the burning, I took a swig of Coke, and that didn't help. I alternated the two, and then started chewing on spearmint gum, which seemed to help. It is now when I'd like to draw your attention to what I said earlier about the order of certain facts being important. Roughly 6 minutes after I'd spat out the pepper, I began to notice a distinct burning sensation in a, shall we say, rather delicate part of my anatomy.

Quickly, I raced into the bathroom, tore my clothes off, leapt into the shower, and began washing myself frantically in an effort to extinguish the fire down below. I ran the shower out of hot water (and trust me, cold water is not what you want on your dangly bits at a time like this). Its been 30 minutes since I got out of the shower, and my parts are still a wee bit warm. There's also a bit of raw feeling in my mouth.

I will say that the spearmint gum seemed to do a better job a cutting the heat than anything else, and there's an interesting characteristic to the heat that once it begins to die down, if you try and rinse your mouth out with any liquid, it causes the pain to flare up (but only in the spots which were burning prior to this) anew. So, I'd say that trying to wash your mouth out was a bad idea, and you should just learn how to take the pain.

One of my cow-orkers claims that he'll "eat anything" and I'm sorely tempted to bring him a pepper tomorrow and tell him to have at it. None of the seeds I've planted have sprouted as of yet, but there's still a bit of time to go before I can call them duds, and I only planted a few of them, so I do have plenty more. I hope that I'm able to get a bumper crop of the peppers in when the plants grow, because there are so many things I want to do with them (and I hope that I can have enough to give to other folks and watch them scream in agony).

[Zuul]

The cardinal rule is to wash your hands immediately after handling hot peppers! I hope you remember that in the future. Ow.

So based off of that experience, what sort of recipes would you use them in?

[The Original An Gadaí]

You should have bathed your genitals in milk.

[Tuckerfan]

The cardinal rule is to wash your hands immediately after handling hot peppers! I hope you remember that in the future. Ow.

So based off of that experience, what sort of recipes would you use them in?

I'd use them sparingly (at least until I got used to them), but any place where you'd want a dark, smoky pepper flavor (like chili or Asian dishes), they'd be perfect for it. One thing I discovered after eating those seeds a few weeks ago is that the peppers quickly kill your ability to detect other kinds of pepper for about a week or more. A few days after I ate the seeds (and your tongue will have a scalded feel to it for a while), I got a pizza and dumped some red pepper flakes on it. Couldn't taste them at all. I dumped more and still couldn't tell they were there. Assuming I get a successful crop of the peppers, I do want to dry some for use on pizza, as I think that they'll be delicious.