i’ve eaten a red habenero, whole.
once.
it took a good couple or so litres of water, and near a loaf of bread, just to wash it down to a raging inferno of omgwtfdidijustdotomyself!!!
and if there is a hotter pepper out there, i’m not sure i want to know about it.
i’ll be perfectly content with my jar of jalepenos & fork, kthnxbye.
My late mother owned a sandwich shop and she insisted that all the staff wore surgical gloves when chopping chillies. Her own experience of not practising what she preached was told to us many times
I’m a little jaded when it comes to the “hot peppers/hot sauce” idea…
The thing is, I served as a waiter in a restaurant for a long time (“ring tosser”, remember me?) and we served what we called “Death Wings”. These wings were pretty freakin’ hot, having been prepared with a habanero puree.
However, I’d get macho showboaters, who would not consider that I actually had their best interests in mind, who would say to me “You can’t make wings hot enough for me”, or “I want the hottest wings you can make.” To which, my response was, “No, actually, you don’t” And they would insist, as if their best interest wasn’t in my best interest re: tips. And this would go on for 10 minutes. There was no end to the macho posturing (and not by me), etc…
So, I’d get angry and vindictive, and I’d approach the cook, who was generally displeased with life and would much rather be playing “Diablo 2”, and I’d say, “This guy won’t shut up ad he’s an idiot. Blow him out of the fucking water.” To which the cook would prepare a hot sauce/chopped Hunan pepper reduction and then blend it with a habanero puree. And then he would bake them in the salamander and apply one or two more coats.
These wings were so abso-fucking-loootly incinidiary that no person could actuallly eat more than one. And I mean nobody.
Essentially, these wings approached something that had been prepared with laboratory chemicals. The next step up would be “bleach” wings… “Yea, you want em hotter? Sure, we can make you some bleach wings”
This is were “hot” stops becoming a food and starts becoming a chemical. And nobody can compete with that.
On that note, here’s a link to “Blair’s 16 Million Reserve”. When you place an order, how does it arrive? As a crystal! That’s right, it’s not even food anymore…
So, yea, I’m not impressed.
The only wings that impress me? “Chernobyl Wings”: Wings tossed in genuine 1986 vintage Chernobyl effluent. Now THOSE are “hot wings”…
Best produce market in the world? It’s not even the best one in America.
I dunno, what is the SU on that reduction? Seriously though, hunan peppers aren’t that hot, and habanero puree? A bit spicy, yeah, but nothing approaching chemical level. Some of the reduction / extracts that I have seen are pretty tough, sure, and nobody truely can compete with that. I have known a guy to eat several bowls of chilie made with a couple drops of “The Source” and he survived it rather well (he gasped and drank more beer than normal, but three bowls of the stuff and he wasn’t going down.
I’ve been to a chile eating contest too, and seen guys eat 5 or more habanaros.
Often times the “showboaters” that talk the loudest at wing resturaunts are the ones that can’t handle the heat. I would imagine that a true “heat” lover would be able to eat a couple of your wings, I just imagine they don’t eat wings that much, since most wings are pretty sad when it comes to heat. After all, some people think jalapeño peppers are spicy.
I’m a heat lover, but I’ve got to admit that I am not the toughest character. I love me some habanero jelly and even eat a plate of serrento chile peppers on occasion, but I haven’t eaten a wing yet that was too much. Sadly I have to drink a lot of beer when I eat Blazing wings at BWW. (never had the Nuclear wings at Hooters, but if it is anything like their other wings, bleh)
I have eaten a purported “Tezpur” chili, in London of all places. My heat tolerance is very high, so once I got past the burning I had a half-hour experience not unlike the one that comes from magic mushrooms.
If you’re in London go to the Montana Hotel for dinner. Ask for Farooq or Dhishi and get the Vindaloo or Jalfrezi, extra spicy. Farooq grows the chilies and if you’re lucky he will top your dish with a raw one.
Cultivation: you can get a much hotter (albeit uglier) habanero or tabasco by growing it in poor soil. You can get very hot and crunchy serranos by restricting the water supply once the fruit begins to ripen.