In 2007, the Guinness Book of Records declared the bhut jolokia, a chili pepper grown in the Indian state of Assam, to be the hottest pepper in the world. I was naturally curious. I wondered just how hot the "world's hottest pepper" might be. In fact, it occurred to me that if a bhut jolokia came my way, I'd probably be tempted to try it. I'll eat anything once.
Twice is another story. (Remind me to tell you about the chicken foot in the dim sum.)
When I initially skimmed the story online in the Guardian, I was favourably disposed: for one thing, the record-breaking heat of bhut jolokia is a source of intense pride in this deprived Indian state. Not only that, it promised to deliver untold riches to the thousands of extremely poor Assamese farmers who have undertaken to grow it. All good, I thought.
Big heat delivers big bucks to people who need it!
Then I read on, explored further, and my misgivings surfaced. It seems that when word got out about the chili's new-found Guinness fame, the Assamese government (specifically India's ministry of defence) wanted in: the active ingredient in any hot pepper is a chemical pigment called capsaicin, which, blasted into a terrorist hideout, would "make them all drop their guns when they take just one breath," said Dr.
Anuj Baraugh, a biotechnologist who is at the forefront of bhut jolokia cultivation.
According to the Guardian, the Central Reserve Police Force - India's largest armed force, specializing in counter-insurgency - had started using "chiligrenades" to quell protesting crowds.
Uh-oh, I thought. Here we go. Another food fight.
I didn't like that. I didn't like the fact that subsistence farmers were being subsidized by their government to help silence dissent. I was appalled that this super-hot chili would be used as a weapon. But that, for certain, was the intent.
And farmers who signed on to this governmentendorsed "grow-op" would be rewarded handsomely. How could they resist?
I no longer was sure that I was game for a taste test.
My hackles were up. But there was more to come: I discovered various
YouTube demonstrations of crazed foodies driven, for whatever reasons, into gobbling down these killer chilis. One fellow, a man called Jamie, chewed up a bhut jolokia, suffered excruciating pain, screamed and writhed and begged to be taken to emergency before he died. We were not told what happened to Jamie. In another YouTube video, a woman, Anandita Dutta Tanuli, set out to beat a 2008 world record by eating 60 fiery-hot bhut jolokias at one sitting.
Celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay had arrived for the event. He tried eating one and quickly dashed out of camera range to purge his scorched innards. He watched in horror as Tanuli scoffed back 49 high-test chilis. She didn't beat the record. She simply wept and gagged for the camera. Her next act was to rub a dozen chilis into her eyes in under a minute. This she did. And again, she wept.
Gordon Ramsay hovered nearby, distraught. I was aghast.
What craziness this pepper inspired!
My curiosity was my undoing. Seduced by Google, I was led to the Hippy Seed Company, where I was treated to yet more suffering. An otherwise perfectly ordinary man, bespectacled and soft spoken, announced that he was going to eat the biggest bhut jolokia he could get his hands on.
This he did while the camera recorded his every burp and gasp in extreme closeup. He described the pain in exquisite detail as it bloomed from his throbbing throat and tongue to his chest and sinuses. He perspired, he squirmed, but he hung in there. So did the camera. So, I confess, did I.
The Guardian reported that the bhut jolokia has since been usurped as the world's hottest chili by an even deadlier pepper: the Trinidad Moruga Scorpion, from Australia.
I don't care. I don't want to know.
