Thursday, February 16, 2012
IT'S A CHEMICAL WEAPON, ESSENTIALLY: From New Mexico comes word of the Trinidad Moruga Scorpion Pepper, weighing in at 1.2M-2.0M Scoville units. I cook with Habenaros often enough. I'm aware of what careless preparation with a hot pepper can do to a hangnail or an errant eye rub, but the flavor of Habenaros in a jerk sauce is worth the risk. Yet at more than a million scovilles, I'm not sure what one could do with a scorpion pepper one could not better do with mace.
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For reference, how many Scovilles is a Habanero? And how many is your garden variety jalapeno?
ReplyDeleteI should have noted:
ReplyDeleteA Scoville unit, first of all, is a ratio of the volume of a given pepper to be diluted in a volume of water before that pepper drops below the threshold of human taste. A bell pepper is perhaps 5, Jalapeno about 5000, a Seranno about 15,000, a Habenaro about 300-500K. That is, if you took one gallon of Habenaro, you'd need more than an acre-foot of water to make it indetectible. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scoville_scale
2,500 - 8,000 Jalapeño (Capsicum annuum)
ReplyDelete100,000 - 350,000 Habanero
http://www.uncommondescent.com/philosophy/a-scoville-scale-for-dangerous-questions/
Offhand, I'd say what's needed is a gallon of scorpion peppers (with appropriate complimentary braising ingredients) and an acre-foot of short ribs.
ReplyDeleteWho eats these peppers? I am super sensitive and have twice stayed up all night with my hands soaking in a bowl of water just from cooking with serrano peppers (10,000–23,000). Disposable gloves are a must for anyone with sensitive skin.
ReplyDeleteHere's a video of someone trying one. It's painful to watch a man in this much pain:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/v/tGPlpyr_BCM&feature" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="170" height="140
Excellent header. Excellent.
ReplyDeleteJesus, what ever happened to good old garlic salt?
ReplyDeleteThe combination of masochism and exhibitionism there is kind of uncomforable. More than kind of.
ReplyDeleteI don't think there's enough Pepcid in the world for me to recover from something like that. What compels some people to eat food that actually hurts?
ReplyDeleteYou could meet Coyote. (He has Johnny Cash's voice.)
ReplyDelete