Jalapenos are like lollipops for children, Guin. A mere 2500-10,000 or so on the Scoville scale. Habaneros are more like ten to 100 times hotter.
That’s what I thought, but I am way sensitive to hot foods-I can barely touch some mild forms of salsa.
I can only imagine what would happen if I even breathed in a habanero. I remember the kid in my class who ate it had his entire face turn red and tears were just pouring down his face. He was complaining, though.
WAS or WASN’T? If he WASN’T it was probably only because he couldnt BREATH! :eek:
Heh, I imagined the poor guy being FORCED to eat a habenero BECAUSE he “was complaining”, and the instructor wanted him to shut up!
Student: It’s hot in here! I really need to leave! Can I skip out early? We’re not doing anything important! Come on!
Teacher: Open your mouth.
Student: What? Why?
Teacher slams a pepper in his pie-hole
Student: COUGH! GAG! WHEEZE!
D’oh!
I mean, he WASN’T complaining. He was definitely affected, but he was still able to talk and everything. But the teacher had one of the girls go down to the cafeteria and get him a carton of milk.
The student chose to sample it. Our teacher told us what would happen, but you were allowed to try it.
I became acquainted with habañeros in a fashion much friendlier than trying to chomp one down fresh and whole, lucky me – dried ones snipped into very tiny fragments and mixed in small quantities with plain old no-beans Hormel chili makes for sufficiently impressive fireworks.
But I did get blindsided once by the little thermonuclear pods when I should have known better: I was fixing Cajun blackened catfish and discovered I was out of blackening spice, so I mixed up my own from spices on hand. Wasn’t hot enough, so, yep, I added in some of those dried snipped fragments.
Well, folks, when I slapped the raw spice-rubbed fishie onto the surface of the glowing-hot cast iron frying pan, whaddaya suppose? The smoke from singed habañero pepper went floating up the stairs and asphyxiated everyone on the second floor, and by the time I had started grabbing my throad and coughing and choking, a panicked evacuation of the whole building was taking place.
They threatened to ban me from being allowed to cook again!
(I actually ate the fish, though. It was hotter by at least one order of magnitude than I would have wanted, but not to the point that it couldn’t be enjoyed. But that smoke could substitute for military-quality tear gas in a pinch.)
Another voice of experience with hot peppers. One year, I was cleaning a batch of extra-hot jalapenos that I grew, without using any gloves. My mistake was having to stop to take a leak… :eek:
I jumped and griped for 20 minutes while my crotch was on fire, and VunderWife could only alternate between laughing he ass off, and calling me an idiot.
Now I catch hell for having boxes of latex surgical gloves in the kitchen, where I use them the most.
Jalapenos are being raised to cut the Scoville rating, mostly for the commercial food market. I like them hot, but sometimes I also need the mild ones when cooking for people who don’t like it that way.
The ones I raise will leave you with The Ring of Fire.
Jalapeños aren’t like habañeros but they can ascend into the legitimately hot zone. I had a friend who grew some in his back yard garden, and offered me some, knowing that l like hot food. Showing off, I bit into one and ate it like a bell pepper. Or such was my intention. With most jalapeños from Associated Supermarket that would not be a problem, but I got the flash of light, immediate hiccups, and my tongue rolled out of my mouth and didn’t want to go back in. Hottest damn jalapeño I ever encountered.
That was my experience with Dave’s Insanity Sauce. It’s pretty much an extract of Habenero with some spices and other stuff (I wonder what the Scoville factor of it is? It’s probably the hottest sauce I’ve ever had).
Needless to say, I had gotten some on my fingers. I wear contact lenses. Well, in spite of washing my hands, it didn’t seem to get all the capsicum off, so instead of doing a “taste test” of my fingers first, I stupidly decided to pop my contact out from my eye.
All I can say is I’m really glad that tears have salt in them. I was also glad that I had the saline bottle handy.
The contact after soaking in the solution the next morning still had capsicum absorbed in it, so I had to throw it out.
Do you mean Dave’s Total Insanity, Dave’s Gourmet Insanity, or Dave’s Ultimate Insanity?
I know Dave’s Gourmet Insanity (the original) runs at about 1.5 million, and the description of Dave’s Ultimate Insanity sounds similar to Blair’s 3AM Reserve, which used to run 2-3 million, but looks like it’s been toned down recently.
I keep a few bottles of Blair’s 6AM Limited Edition on hand for my dearest enemies, by the way.
Yeah, that one.
I will never forget my first experience with Dave’s though. I would guess I probably put a 1/4-1/2 teaspoon of sauce on a scoopable tortilla chip. I then ate the thing.
I experienced new forms of pain that day. I have a high tolerance for spicy foods, and have never had a sauce have that reaction on me before.
It was painful, but I wasn’t doing half as bad as the guy who had some with me. (It was his first time trying the stuff as well.) I survived with a half glass of milk followed by a half-glas of orange juice. He probably downed about 3 glasses of each.
I agree. Like I mentioned before with the Hungarian wax peppers – jalapenos are all over the place. They’re not really known for being crazy hot peppers, but every once in awhile I get a batch of jalepenos which is surprisingly intense. Pickled jalapenos are generally child’s play. But if you bite into a scorching-hot fresh one, you will be in serious pain. I regularly eat fresh Thai birds-eye chiles and the occasional habanero, and I guarantee that some of those jalapenos are up there on the Scoville scale.
I used to play corporate beer-league softball after work, and the usual routine was to go out for beer and wings after the game. One night we go to “The Chicken Bone” and try their infernal Thermonuclear Wings, which are heavily spiced with habanero. It’s like some kind of sick rite of passage to eat them. Which is why we ordered a double-sized platter of the damn things.
I wept. My nose ran like a frigging hose. It was one of those “quien es mas macho?” deals where I’m out with the guys, and we all take big hearty bites of the wings and pretend for as long as we can that we are savoring the flavor with great gusto. Bullshit. My only consolation is I wasn’t the first one to crack. After like three wings somebody finally says “holy fuck, I’m dying here!” Drinking beer to try to douse the flames was stupid. If anything, it seemed to intensify the the agony. But, y’know, we just had to finish the satanic meal or relinquish all claims to manliness. I was rather willing to do just that, but allowed myself to be manipulated by my own idiotic male insecurities. I must have eaten ten wings. By the seventh or eighth, we’re all just laughing and crying at the same time. Grown men, with tears running down their faces, saying things like “oh man, this is the best!” and then bursting into hysterics. Probably three hours later, the pain finally started to subside, and we had sobered up sufficiently to call it a night. I actually felt rather better than I thought I would, and wondered if I was riding an endorphin high triggered by a solid hour of sheer oral agony.
Copious beer and lots of greasy wings can lead to, well, the shits come next morning. That particular next morning was no exception. Can you say “Ring of Fire”? Judas Flaming Priest, it was like my ass was an inverted eruption of volcanic pain. Never in my life had I experienced such a diabolical thing. I was just a mess all around: abdominal cramps that could only be assuaged by releasing a flood of magmatic agony, a catch 22 if ever there was. It did make me wonder if the Wings of Gehenna could have somehow aggravated more than just one opening or the other. Perhaps a whopping enough dose of capsacin can cause intestinal distress as well? I still don’t know for sure, having been given both affirmative and negative answers to that question. The rings were certainly greasy enough, but I’ve eaten a fair amount of fat-laden crap over a pitcher or two of Cheap American Beer ™ in my day, and not suffered quite such colonic trauma.
I don’t think the peppers cause harm, per se, but I do wonder if our innards can be upset by the capsacin or other compounds found in the pepper extracts with sufficient dose. Any dopers know the answer?
I eat Habaneros. It’s really weird. They hurt and burn like I liked the firey core of the earth, but I just don’t care. If I put some food thats is hot in my mouth (hot as in thermal energy hot) I care and my do best to cool it down. However with the habanero the pain and fire do not bother me. Further nothing elses seems to bother me and I feel real calm yet energetic. I rather enjoy it. I’m guessing major endorphins. Is this healthy? I don’t feel any illaffects if I stop eating them so it’s not addictive.
like I liked should be like I licked
Slight hijack: I know that tannic wines have this same effect. Try a rioja with your next Thai meal. If you’re a fan of spice, this really complements it well, but has the side effect of increasing the percieved spiciness.
So, what is it in beer that makes things “worse”?
Ha ha, my husband once grew a bumper crop of smallish, waxy-orange harbaneros. He and his friend dared each other to eat a raw one. They dared me too, but I declined since I don’t have to prove my manhood. I counted to three, and the boys popped the peppers into their mouths. Thirty seconds later, my brave and foolish menfolk were sweating, reddening, and teary-eyed. Two minutes after, they were hustling me to the car because they decided it was a good time to get ice cream. My husband, who was driving, absent-mindedly rubbed his eye–then spasmed with pain and almost crashed the car. Our friend developed a full-blown nosebleed.
I laughed and laughed.
We got ice cream, and they felt better. Next time anyone in Washington County, Pa gets hot pepper burns, you can find a cure in Casciola’s fresh banana milkshakes.
Actually it could harm you. Not all throats/voice boxes are the same. With one person it could simply take the top of his/her head off. With another it could permanently mute. These are so hot I think when I smelled one I came as close as you can come to actually smelling heat.
I’ve nevr done this with habaneros, but in college years ago, when I was much more sensitive to spicy foods than I am now, I decided to make chili from scratch. It was in the mddle of the night on a Saturday in the dorm; my roommate had gone home for the weeekend, and hardly anyone was around.
“From scratch” in this case meant using fresh jalapenos for the first time. While the beans, etc. were simmering, I started slicing up the peppers. Within a few minutes, the skin on my fingers started burning. As the pain gradually worsened, I tried washng my hands with soap. No help at all. I tried every solvent I could think of: laundry detergent, vinegar, salt water…nothing helped. By about 3 a.m., I ws desperate enough that I called the E.R. to see if they could give me any advice, but they said they couldn’t tell me anything unless I came in, which I wasn’t willing to do.
The next morning my Salvadoran roommate, who eats straight pickled chilis out of the jar, came back to find me sleepimng fitfully, face-down, with each hand stuck in a big bowl of ice water. She and her father couldn’t stop laughing when I explained what had happened. Luckily I’m not such a delicate flower anymore.