Via Fark
The chilli so hot you need gloves
England is about one the last places I would have thought of as being a place that appreciated super hot chili peppers. My ignorance is corrected.
Actually, I think most hot peppers require you to wear gloves when picking them-was I wrong?
I thought so as well.
Look at the date on the article.
The sales website appears to be very real
Peppers by Post
If the capascasin(sp?) levels in peppers like this can harm your skin, wouldn’t it cause burns in the esophagus and mouth as well?
A Google search on “Dorset Naga” brings up one, and only one, page; the one linked above. My BS sense is tingling.
I don’t think they “burn” your skin with direct contact the danger is that you will accidently transfer the oils (if touched with bare hands) to your eyes or other delicate or mucous membrane tissues.
If so they’ve gone to a lot of trouble for a very tiny joke.
You don’t need gloves to pick peppers. I’ve picked everything from little Thai peppers to jalapeños and scotch bonnets using my bare hands with no ill effects.
…sorry 2001
Thanks for posting the link! My poor homesick Salvadoran-American college roomie now lives in small-town England, near Dover, and is terribly homesick for anything involving fresh chilies. (They are nowhere to be found near her - buying ethnic groceries in London is one thing, but in a small town with sheep grazing on the outskirts, it’s quite another story. Hot peppers there are only to be found in cans, and only jalapenos.) Maybe I’ll mail-order her a birthday present one of these days.
I don’t understand the purpose behind breeding hotter-than-habanero chiles. I mean, habaneros are so hot to be almost inedible, and they only score about 100,000 Scoville Heat Units (SHU) on average, according to the article. This new Dorset Naga scores 900,000 SHU! I would imagine that even the most lead-tongued chile junkie can only take so much capsaicin before burning a hole in his or her mouth… What use could there possibly be for a chile this hot??? :eek:
Some people have a greater heat tolerance when it comes to food. Jalepenos are delicious and I eat them like you might eat a pickle. Habeneros are great to ccok with and I use them in lots of dishes. Scotch Bonnets are hotter than habaneros but I use them in my hot salsa. At some point it does become all about heat and that is really just for macho-showmanship. I like my spice to have flavor and actually taste good. If it’s hot enough to clear my sinus’ and make me sweat, all that much better. If my lips are still stinging/throbbing/burning after dessert then I know that I better make sure there are baby wipes at home. Cause I’m gonna be needing them soon.
Does not compute.
Closer reading of the article reveals:
It doesn’t say you need to wear gloves to pick them, but rather to remove the seeds. That makes a bit more sense since that area tends to be the hottest part of the pepper.
I await with great anticipation the development of the first 1 million Scoville Heat Unit pepper.
I was also interested to see in that link that police-grade pepper spray has 5-6 million SHU. I had one patient who repeatedly took that spray in the face as he tried to clout my security officers with a large metal object. It didn’t slow him down much. In fact, he seemed to be a fellow hot pepper aficionado, as he kept crying out “hoo ah! That’s good! I like it hot! Give me some more!”
Finally he put down the metal object so he could relax and fully enjoy the capsaicin experience.
His biggest complaint was that the spray irritated a hangnail he had on his finger.
From what I understand capsaicin does not actually burn, it just makes you feel like it. Am I wrong about that?
How can they be-the habanero rates higher on the Scoville heat scale?
Scoville units aren’t really constant within a species of pepper. Often one will find an individual Scotch Bonnet with more SHU than an individual Habanero.
On average, I believe Habaneros tend to have a bit more heat than Scotch Bonnets.
Of course I believe there’s the argument that since Habaneros are Scotch Bonnets are the same species, but the Habanero has been bred to a certain appearance, they’re really the same pepper. Not all buy into that.
http://www.thescarms.com/hotstuff/pepperfacts.htm