I will admit, I like spicy food. Not to extremes, but I certainly don’t mind a bit of heat. At any given time you are likely to find two or three different types of hot sauce around my house, just so we have a range.
But I also like to taste what I am eating, so there are limits. Which is what had me asking why as I was reading about the new hot pepper that has been developed. It’s supposed to be the hottest ever, and the people at the Guinness Book of World Records agreed, naming it the hottest pepper in the world. We’re talking extreme heat.
It’s called Pepper X, which I think isn’t the best name. Mostly because it sounds like something Elon Musk came up with and I believe his fifteen minutes expired long ago. But he had nothing to do with this. This pepper is the creation of Ed Currie, the man who bred the Carolina Reaper pepper, which, until last week, was considered the hottest in the world.
According to an interview I saw with him, he says a friend sent him pepper seeds that were from a brutally hot pepper. So he crossed those with his Carolina Reaper and came up with something even hotter.
To give you an idea, a jalapeno is generally around 5000 units on the Scoville Heat Units. The Carolina Reaper, according to the Guinness people, is around 1.64 million Scoville units. Pepper X comes in at 2.693 million Scoville units, according to the certificate he has from the Guinness Book of World Records.
Curie actually ate one of his creations. He says he felt the heat in his mouth for about three and a half hours. Then the cramps hit. He said he laid in the rain on a slab of marble for about an hour to help cope with the pain. But once that was finished, he went for dinner and had more hot peppers. Just not that hot.
And he says he’s not finished. He is actually growing peppers right now that are hotter. He’s just not ready to unleash them just yet.
In spite of the fact I like some heat, I think he went past my limit long ago.