TED THE FIRE BREATHING IDIOT

I own Mad Gringo Hot Sauce Do you want to review my sauce

Fri, 10 May 2013 19:48:14 -0400

Sure thanks
Ted Barrus
PO BOX 212
Hammond Or 97121
USA

Ted, you are the greatest!

Fri, 10 May 2013 19:47:00 -0400

Saw this blog post this morning on ArtofAdventure.Net and you were in it. I followed the link in the article and came to your site. Very cool, ur I mean hot.

Awesome welcome to the blog

FIRE BREATHING IDIOT'S FOOD & RESTAURANT REVIEWS: Portland's NW Elixirs wins awards at NYC Hot Sauce Expo

disgustingkitchen — Fri, 03 May 2013 18:19:07 -0400

FIRE BREATHING IDIOT'S FOOD & RESTAURANT REVIEWS: Portland's NW Elixirs wins awards at NYC Hot Sauce Expo:

disgustingkitchen:

By Michael Russell, The Oregonian
Email the author | Follow on Twitter
on April 26, 2013 at 6:02 AM, updated April 26, 2013 at 6:49 AM

View full sizeNW Elixirs Hott Sauce #1 and Verde Hott #2, made in Portland.

Andrew Garrett went to New York…

FIRE BREATHING IDIOT'S FOOD & RESTAURANT REVIEWS: Army Officer, Wife Accused of Child Abuse With Hot Sauce ‘Training’

disgustingkitchen — Fri, 03 May 2013 18:19:00 -0400

FIRE BREATHING IDIOT'S FOOD & RESTAURANT REVIEWS: Army Officer, Wife Accused of Child Abuse With Hot Sauce ‘Training’:

disgustingkitchen:

A U.S. Army major and his wife are facing federal child-abuse charges for cruelty to their six children, three of whom were adopted. The alleged acts of cruelty include breaking their bones, denying them medical attention, withholding water and force-feeding them hot sauce, U.S. Attorney Paul J….

FIRE BREATHING IDIOT'S FOOD & RESTAURANT REVIEWS: Eating Fire

disgustingkitchen — Fri, 03 May 2013 18:18:50 -0400

FIRE BREATHING IDIOT'S FOOD & RESTAURANT REVIEWS: Eating Fire:

disgustingkitchen:

Why do people feel compelled to put the world’s spiciest chili peppers in their mouths?

By Jackson Landers|Posted Wednesday, April 10, 2013, at 1:29 PM

Butch T Scorpion pepper
Courtesy of eBay

I’ve always wanted to be the kind of guy who eats really…

FIRE BREATHING IDIOT'S FOOD & RESTAURANT REVIEWS: WOW TALK ABOUT ERRORS

disgustingkitchen — Fri, 03 May 2013 18:18:41 -0400

FIRE BREATHING IDIOT'S FOOD & RESTAURANT REVIEWS: WOW TALK ABOUT ERRORS:

disgustingkitchen:

SO A FRIEND JUST SHARED THIS ARTICLE WITH ME AND I KEEP FINDING ERRORS.

PEOPLE SHOULD DO RESEARCH BEFORE DOING AN ARTICLE LIKE THIS.

Eating Fire

Why do people feel compelled to put the world’s spiciest chili peppers in their mouths?

By Jackson Landers|Posted Wednesday, April 10,…

ARTICLE ABOUT CHILES YOU MIGHT RECOGNIZE A FEW NAMES Modern Farmer: When approaching the world’s hottest chile pepper, caution seems wise....

disgustingkitchen — Fri, 03 May 2013 18:18:26 -0400

ARTICLE ABOUT CHILES YOU MIGHT RECOGNIZE A FEW NAMES Modern Farmer: When approaching the world’s hottest chile pepper, caution seems wise....:

modfarm:

When approaching the world’s hottest chile pepper, caution seems wise. “Be careful,” says San Diego-based chile grower Jim Duffy, who mailed me a sample of the Moruga Scorpion, which he is trying to get in the Guinness Book of World Records for its insane level of heat. Duffy isn’t kidding…

Photo

disgustingkitchen — Fri, 12 Apr 2013 12:52:07 -0400

Photo

disgustingkitchen — Fri, 12 Apr 2013 12:50:49 -0400

A user's guide to chillies

disgustingkitchen — Fri, 12 Apr 2013 00:18:50 -0400

ROSLYN GRUNDY

MARINA OLIPHANT

SPICE IS NICE: “Chillies really are an incredible lift not just for the food you’re eating but for your body itself, with all the endorphins that the eating of them kicks off,” says chilli lover Neil Perry.

The chemical in chillies that makes them taste hot, capsaicin, is technically a neurotoxin. It stimulates the adrenal glands to release hormones, giving you an energy rush. No wonder we’re hooked on them.

Australian chef Neil Perry is a chilli fiend. Lunch on the run might be a bowl of rice with salted chillies, and a quick family dinner canned white beans and tuna with anchovies, fresh tomatoes, olive oil and a dash of chipotle powder.

But it’s at his restaurants that Perry’s chilli love affair really reveals itself. At the Chinese-influenced Spice Temple restaurants, for example, the chef uses pickled, salted, fermented and dried chillies - in the one dish. “They all add a different dimension and heat. The sum of them is much better than the parts,” says Perry.

“Chillies really are an incredible lift not just for the food you’re eating but for your body itself, with all the endorphins that it kicks off.”

British chef Paul Wilson says he’s using more chillies than ever before. Visiting Mexico has given him an appreciation for the dried product.

“When you actually see the Mexicans harvest produce and how they use chillies and how they sell them at the market, it makes perfect sense. All their gastronomy is about re-hydrating stuff because it’s such a hot climate nothing lasts very long… They put them over a flat grill or over a wood barbecue and almost catch alight, then cover them in water or stock and let them stew for a couple of hours and those chillies and that water becomes crucial to the flavour of whatever they’re making.”

These are some of the main fresh and dried varieties you’ll find in the shops…

FRESH CHILLIES

Bird’s eye: Two to four centimetres in length, tapering to a point, these small chillies can pack a wallop. Ripe, red bird’s eyes are widely used in south-east Asian dishes such as Thai salads, Indonesia’s sambal ulek (chilli paste) and Vietnam’s nuoc cham dipping sauce. Chef Neil Perry likes the citrus character and intense sting of unripe green bird’s eye chillies, which he adds to salads.

Try: Thai yam (salad), with prawns or squid, lime juice, fish sauce and heaps of chopped chillies.

Habanero: About five centimetres long and wide at the shoulder, tapering to a small point, these intensely hot chillies start out green and ripen to yellow, orange or red. In ‘The Great Chile Book’, Mark Miller says their flavour has ”tropical fruit tones” that work well in food containing tropical fruit or tomatoes. Handle with care: too much habanero will overpower a dish and can cause havoc if you get it on your skin.

Try: A little in a salsa made with tomatillos, a small green fruit in the tomato family.

Jalapeno: Five to nine centimetres long with a rounded end, the jalapeno is one of the world’s most popular chillies. Its thick flesh makes it easy to work with. Perry prefers to use jalapenos green for their citrus character. Consultant chef Paul Wilson pickles them, green and red, and shaves them raw on ceviche: ”It gives you punch and a nice capsicum flavour.”

Try: A salad with cherry tomatoes, avocado, butter lettuce and chopped jalapenos, dressed with olive oil and lemon juice.

Long chillies: Perhaps the most common variety, these chillies can be up to 15 centimetres long and ripen from green to red. ”They’re a bit of a lottery,” Perry says. ”At different times of year they go up and down in heat levels.”

Try: Chopped long chillies add a lovely fresh heat and crunch to a stir-fry.

Serrano: Wilson’s current favourite variety, these small chillies look like a bird’s eye chilli but have a rounded end like a jalapeno. With the sweet, crunchy flesh of a capsicum and the heat of a jalapeno, they are typically eaten raw but can also be pickled or roasted.

Try: Finely chopped red serrano in a salsa or pureed green serrano in salsa verde, with onion, garlic, coriander and lime juice.

DRIED CHILLIES

Ancho: A ripe red poblano chilli, when dried, is known as an ancho (”wide”). Large and heart-shaped, it has a mild to hot, sweet fruit flavour reminiscent of raisin or prune. Ancho, mulato and pasilla chillies make up the so-called holy trinity used to make Mexico’s national dish, mole poblano.

Try: In chicken and tortilla soup.

Cascabel: This round dried chilli rattles when shaken because of the many loose seeds inside - the name literally means ”little bell”. It is spicy and smoky, with a mild to medium heat.

Try: In roasted tomato sauce, pasta and meatballs.

Cayenne: Small, bright red and pointed, the cayenne chilli has thin skin that lends itself to drying. It has a sharp, bright flavour and plenty of heat and is often used in powder form.

Try: Turbo-charge your macaroni and cheese with a sprinkle of cayenne powder.

Chipotle: These dried ripe jalapeno chillies are Perry’s favourite. Coffee-brown and wrinkly, they have deep, rich smoky roasted flavour. They can also be used instead of bacon in vegetarian dishes. Perry adds them to Mexican-style braised dishes, stir-fries and salads.

Try: Mayonnaise flavoured with finely chopped chipotle and garlic on a burger or corn cobs.

Guajillo: When dried, ripe mirasol chillies are known as guajillo. Bright red, conical and up to 14 centimetres long, guajillo can be very hot, with fruity berry overtones.

Try: In home-made baked beans.

Heavenly facing chillies: Also known as facing heaven chillies, these dried Sichuan chillies are so named because they grow skywards rather than down. Fragrant, lemony and moderately hot, they’re between three and six centimetres in length, with thin skin. They’re available at Asian grocers.

Try: In mapo doufu, the Sichuan dish of minced meat and tofu in spicy chilli-bean sauce.

Mulato: Like the ancho, mulato is a dried poblano chilli, but has been allowed to ripen to dark brown before drying. Large (up to 14 centimetres long) and broad, it has a mild to medium heat and aniseed notes.

Try: In a rich beef, bean and tomato stew.

Pasilla: The name means ”little raisin”, for its dark brown and wrinkled appearance. The dried chilaca chilli even tastes a bit like a raisin, Wilson says. It’s not wildly hot but adds colour and richness.

Try: In mole negro (dark mole) and seafood dishes.

The Spectator’s View: Legally correct or not, a repugnant decision

disgustingkitchen — Fri, 12 Apr 2013 00:09:19 -0400

Fri Apr 05 2013 05:00:00

The Spectator’s View: Legally correct or not, a repugnant decision

Room where a developmentally disabled Hamilton man was held and tortured for 17 days.

Hamilton Spectator staff

Legally defensible doesn’t always mean morally and ethically appropriate. If you want proof of that, look no further than the case of Stanley Brown, one of two people who held a developmentally disabled Hamilton man for 17 days, tortured him mercilessly and stole his money. And who will get out of jail early thanks to an appeals court decision this week.

Brown will have his sentence reduced from 13 years to seven years and two months. His partner in the horrific crime, Dakota Thompson, has also had her 10-year sentence reduced, but it’s not yet known by how much. Of course, the overriding question is: Why?

The appeals were predicated on the legal view that the sentences were too harsh. Too harsh in a case where they forced a vulnerable man to eat his own feces, beat him bloody and put hot pepper in water he tried to use to cleanse his wounds? If anything, the original sentences seem too light.

Odds are the appeal succeeded because there was evidence the sentences were not consistent with other sentencing decisions in similar cases. That goes back to our original point: You might be able to justify this decision legally, but in the real world, it seems as wrong as can be.

Howard Elliott

Food Tour Gets off to a Fiery Start

disgustingkitchen — Fri, 12 Apr 2013 00:05:38 -0400

The head of the Appalachian Regional Commission bites into local food promotion as an economic development tool. He starts in the foodie capital of Southern Appalachia, Western North Carolina, with a visit to Smoking J’s Fiery Foods in Candler.

By Tim Marema

A Growing CultureWorkers wear protective gloves as they process hot peppers at the 10-acre farm of Smoking J’s Fiery Foods.Earl Gohl, federal co-chair of the Appalachian Regional Commission, has a job that requires him to take the heat.

And we’re talking about more than Washington, D.C., politics.

On Wednesday Gohl was atSmoking J’s Fiery Foods in Candler, N.C., to launch his ARC Foodways tour.

“It was a cold day, but it was hot stuff,” Gohl said.

He sampled hot sauce and peppers at the farm, which is west of Asheville. About 25 other nonprofit, foundation and government leaders joined him on the tour. The visit was organized as part of the fourth annual gathering of theAppalachia Funders Network.

Smoking J’s is part of what Gohl describes as a burgeoning economic sector in Appalachia – local foods production.

The farm is notable in a region that already has a reputation for producing all things local, from food to beer to art. The 10-acre farm is owned and run by Joel and Tara Mowrey. The farm grows about 20 varieties of hot and sweet peppers. Besides the usual jalapenos, there are jolokia ghost, fatilli and the scorching Trinidad scorpion butch T 6, the hottest in the world.

Joel Mowrey said two people work year-round at the farm, in addition to the owners. That number swells to 13 or more seasonally.

To process their spicy ingredients into sauces, rubs and salsa, the Mowreys take advantage of a community commercial kitchen in Candler. The facility is run by Blue Ridge Food Ventures, and it serves as a sort of business incubator. Numerous individuals and small businesses share the kitchen, lowering the cost and hassle of getting into the industry.

The ARC’s Gohl says this kind of community infrastructure is what’s needed to help local food businesses in Appalachia take off.

ARCFederal Co-Chairman Earl Gohl of the ARC tours the hoop house, where pepper seedlings are growing.“We’ve got good soil, a long growing season, and lots of local knowledge,” he said. “The challenge is to develop the ‘entrepreneurial ecosystem’ to make local foods a stronger part of the local economy.”

Gohl said he hopes to visit local-food projects like Smoking J’s and the community kitchen in all 13 of the states that have counties in the federally defined Appalachian region, which runs from northeast Mississippi to southern New York.

Since 2001 the ARC has pumped $7.6 million into local-food production projects. That funding has gone to support marketing, training and infrastructure like shared kitchens and markets.

A 2012 ARC report says expanding local food production has the “potential to increase employment opportunities, improve community vitality and quality of life, and become a sustainable and healthy part of Appalachia’s future economic and community development.”

“We don’t have specific numbers” on the potential economic impact of local food production, Gohl said. “But direct sales by farmers to buyers have grown dramatically. That reflects well on the whole system.”

The Chili Pepper Arms Race Rages On

disgustingkitchen — Fri, 12 Apr 2013 00:02:42 -0400

The competition to grow the hottest chili pepper can be deadly

Mar 26, 2013 @ 2:18 PM

For the past few years, chili growers from all around the world have been fighting to breed the hottest chili pepper. Now, the competition is more deadly than ever with the heat being raised over 14 million Scoville units over the past three years, the Wall Street Journal reports.

In 2010, Gerald Fowler’s Naga Viper pepper was measured for 1.382 million Scoville Heat Units and named the hottest pepper grown in the Guinness World Book of Records. Only four months after the Naga Viper’s crowning, chili grower Alex de Wit and his brother created the Trinidad Scorpion Butch T. with 1.464 million Scovilles, which ended up stealing the title.

Slideshow: The World’s 10 Spiciest Hot Sauces Slideshow

Although the Butch T. holds the current title as the hottest pepper, even more potent breeds have been created. Alex and Marcel de Wit, who own the Chilli Factory in Morisset, Australia, are planning to submit a more powerful form of the Butch T. pepper to Guinness; Paul Bosland, head of New Mexico State University’s Chile Pepper Institute, claimed to break 2 million Scovilles with his new Trinidad Moruga Scorpion; Nick Moore of Dr. Burnörium’s Hot Sauce Emporium is about to unveil his Psycho Serum which has 6.4 million Scovilles; and New Jersey entrepreneur Blair Lazar released his Blair’s 16 Million Reserve with pure capsaicin crystals, which topped our list of spiciest hot sauces this year.

Considering there are peppers and sauces out there with such high potency, it might come as no surprise that ingesting these sauces can be quite dangerous.

“After 800,000 Scoville units, you’ve got to be careful,” Alex de Wit told the Journal. “You’ll pay the consequences—you’ll be on the floor for hours. We’ve had people go to the hospital.”

Although it is rare, chili peppers have put people in the hospital. In 2012, chef Arif Ali collapsed when he tried his restaurant’s “ultimate flaming hot chicken wings” with ghost chili pepper sauce, and over 100 Fed Ex workers were hospitalized after a barrel of chili pepper extract (capsaicin) was punctured. Chili extract can burn the skin, so chili growers make sure to handle the peppers with protection.

“Once you break them open, you have to be very, very careful,” Paul Bosland told the Wall Street Journal. “We put on almost a hazmat suit—full body coveralls, a breathing apparatus and a hat.”

Although it can be dangerous to some and requires protection to process, chili peppers will keep getting hotter and hotter. Now, 16 million Scovilles later, the competition still rages on as we wait for the next scorching pepper to make it into the spotlight.

Skyler Bouchard is a junior writer for the Daily Meal. Follow her on twitter at @skylerbouchard.

THE MILKY WAY CHALLENGE YOU HAVE TO EAT 5 MILKY WAYS IN 10 MINUTES

disgustingkitchen — Fri, 12 Apr 2013 00:01:42 -0400

No thanks

Hey Ted, If one wishes to become a chili-head (having never eaten chili peppers before), what pepper(s) would you recommend they start with? And do you think it is safe for someone who has acid reflux to eat hot peppers?

disgustingkitchen — Fri, 12 Apr 2013 00:01:34 -0400

I would be very careful

Berkeley’s new hot sauce shop turns up the heat

disgustingkitchen — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 23:59:50 -0400

March 28, 2013 9:00 am by Emilie Raguso

Co-owners Dylan Keenen and Becky Gibbons bring a new kick to Berkeley with their passion for peppers. Photo: Emilie Raguso

A local couple has added an ample splash of spice to Berkeley’s food scene with a new shop downtown devoted to hot sauce and all things chili.

There are Atomic Fireballs, spiced nuts and fiery chocolates; mango lollipops covered in chili powder; and small bags of dehydrated chilies from a family farm. There are “warming” fruity beverages spiced with capsaicin, the ingredient that makes peppers spicy. And there are crushed and powdered peppers in a range of varieties.

Then, of course, there’s the hot sauce: more than 200 varieties from producers around the country, and around the world, many of which are small businesses.

“The ones that are widely known tend not to be as good as the ones made in small batches by the people who are really passionate about it,” said Heat co-owner Dylan Keenen. Keenen, 23, has been in the process of opening Heat Hot Sauce Shop — at 1922B Martin Luther King Jr. Way in Berkeley — with girlfriend Becky Gibbons, 22, since early December. The Oakland-based couple will celebrate the shop’s grand opening Saturday from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. with a 10%-off sale.

Hot sauce, as far as the eye can see. Photo: Emilie Raguso

Keenen estimated that there are at least 2,000 types of hot sauce on the market. For Heat, he looked mainly for independent brands, some of which he found on crowd-sourced funding website Kickstarter. A number of the offerings are organic, and Keenen said he sought items that avoid food coloring and, when possible, preservatives, though the latter posed more of a challenge. In addition, he said, Heat offers at least five brands that aren’t available at any other retail location in the state, and some that can’t be found at any other shop in the nation.

Local offerings include several strains from Oakland-based Pretty Dog Hot Sauce; Bandar’s spicy mango hot sauce, an Indian-style brand from Mountain View; Dave’s Gourmet and Youk’s Hot Sauce from San Francisco; KGWan’s from Santa Cruz; The Pepper Plant from Gilroy; and Lucky Dog from Hayward. Other popular brands available at Heat include Blair’s, CaJohns, Melinda’s and Heartbreaking Dawns.

One section in the store features 40 “superhot” sauces — such as Satan’s Blood, Moruga Madness Hot Sauce, and CaJohns’ Z Nothing Beyond — which Keenen said are not for the average consumer. The last has been measured at 4 million Scoville heat units. For reference, Tabasco sauce and jalapeño peppers have 2,500 to 5,000 Scoville units. Pure capsaicin, which is not commercially available, measures 16 million on the scale. (“There’s been somewhat of an arms race to get to the hottest hot sauce” in the past decade, observed Keenen. “It gets over the top.”)

Those with extreme tastes will also be pleased to find Pure Cap, a capsaicin extract so hot that you have to sign a waiver to purchase it. The shop will also carry the seeds of the infamous ghost pepper, as well as whole and pickled ghost peppers, and hot sauces made from the legendary vegetable. The ghost pepper had long held the title for the hottest pepper in the world, but the Trinidad Scorpion Moruga Blend stole that record last year. And, yes, Heat carries hot sauces, barbecue sauces and salsas made from the Trinidad Scorpion, too.

The shop is organized by chili pepper, but customers can also find regional types of sauces, such as Louisiana-style and Mexican varieties, and seasonal and “dessert” hot sauces, too. And the couple have their own line of house-made, handcrafted hot sauces for sale as well; at least three new blends are currently in development. Customers in the shop, which is about a block north of Trader Joe’s, can expect to find a counter for tasting different products where a revolving variety of sauces will be featured regularly.

Most of the sauces can only be purchased in the shop, but Keenen said plans for online purchasing are in the works. And there’s also a mail-order “hot sauce of the month” club ($45 for three months and $80 for six; local pick-up prices are cheaper).

Heat Hot Sauce Shop has been in this space, at 1922B Martin Luther King Jr. Way, since December, but has only recently opened. Photo: Emilie Raguso

Keenen said his first experience with a hot pepper took place when he was in the school garden in fifth grade and someone convinced him to take a bite from a jalapeño. By high school he was eating his eggs with Tabasco. But it was freshman year in college, at UC Santa Cruz, that Keenen describes as a turning point.

“I was putting Sriracha on pretty much everything. There were no limits,” he said. “Usually I’m not into sugar in hot sauce, but they just have the right amount.”

These days, at any given time, Keenen stocks his fridge with up to 30 different hot sauce brands and has been known to burn through a five-ounce bottle in just two days. (The brand with that honor is Chicaoji, a Washington-based hot sauce company that combines chipotle chilies, raw cacao, raw apple cider vinegar, goji berries, agave nectar and sea salt.)

“I can put it on anything, really,” he said, of hot sauce in general. “I like it on ice cream. And I have this maple syrup-chipotle infused one that’s amazing on pancakes.”

Keenen said, initially, after graduating last August with a sociology degree, he started to think about creating his own hot sauce company. But he found a field already crowded with players.

“Every cool idea I came up with — goji berry, spirulina — somebody had already done. I kinda got frustrated that all my cool ideas, that I thought were original, had already been tried. So I thought: Why not have a shop that has them all in one place?”

Keenen said there are just a handful of other hot sauce shops in California. They include a chain with three southern California outposts, and a shop slated to open in San Francisco later this year.

Some of the hottest sauces in the store sport warning labels or names that promise pain. Photo: Emilie Raguso

Keenen grew up in Ojai, Calif., an 8,000-person community of “hippies and farms” in southern California. His stepdad is an organic farmer — growing, among other crops, hot peppers — and his mother owns a small café, The Farmer and The Cook, for which she makes her own hot sauce with her husband’s peppers. Keenen said he grew up around her shop from the time he was 10, which taught him how to run a business.

And it was his father, who would often come back from trips toting “amazing hot sauces” as gifts, who also helped stoke Keenen’s passion for the pepper. His parents donated start-up money toward Heat, and Keenen noted that his father, who lives in Alameda, had been helping out locally as well. But the road hasn’t been exactly smooth.

“It’s kind of scary,” Keenen said. “Everything is always more expensive than you expect.”

In fact, the shop nearly didn’t open at all due to a range of obstacles and expenses posed by permitting issues with the city. Keenen and Gibbons moved into the space on MLK in early December, and had hoped to open before Christmas. Since then, their official opening has been delayed due to city requirements, primarily related to ADA compliance and a mop sink. In early March, the couple had decided to give up on plans to open the storefront, but a rush of community support — including help from the city’s Office of Economic Development and District 4 Councilman Jesse Arreguín — convinced them to change their minds.

“It’s kind of a gamble,” Keenen said. “We definitely recognize the risk. We’re doing something that’s not really being done right now. But we also feel like it’s a great opportunity.”

Keenen said he thinks the shop will work because, for one, people get really into hot sauce. It’s a relatively cheap way to dress up any kind of food. Many varieties have zero or few calories. And then there’s that addictive element. ”You kind of get the endorphin rush,” he said. “It’s definitely an addiction, but the good thing is that there’s something healthy about it.”

Keenen said partner Becky Gibbons has mostly been drawn to the milder sauces, and the positive health effects said to be associated with peppers. ”Hot sauce isn’t all about the heat,” she said Wednesday. “The flavor is just as important.” Keenen agreed, but said pushing the limits of his taste buds is a definite driver for him. Fortunately for all the “chili heads” out there, Heat Hot Sauce Shop offers a wide enough variety so everyone with an interest in spice can find an old or a new favorite in the mix.

Heat Hot Sauce Shop is located at 1922B Martin Luther King Jr. Way in Berkeley. Learn more onHeat’s website and connect on Twitter and Facebook. The shop accepts special orders. Hours of operation are from Sunday to Thursday, noon to 7 p.m.; Friday, from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m.; and Saturday, from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. (Please note, hours are subject to change. Call to confirm at 510- 849-1048.) Heat’s grand opening takes place Saturday; shoppers will get 10% off all purchases.

Bookmark Berkeleyside NOSH for East Bay food news and stories, and follow Berkeleyside NOSH on Twitter, and on Facebook.

In search of the world’s hottest pepper

disgustingkitchen — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 23:58:12 -0400

Commercial growers compete to breed the spiciest chile — and be immortalized in the Guinness Book of World Records

BY LESSLEY ANDERSON

When approaching the world’s hottest chile pepper, caution seems wise. “Be careful,” says San Diego-based chile grower Jim Duffy, who mailed me a sample of the Moruga Scorpion, which he is trying to get in the Guinness Book of World Records for its insane level of heat. Duffy isn’t kidding around: upon popping the Scorpion into my mouth, the tip of my tongue feels like it’s being jabbed by a hundred needles and there’s a heavy burn rolling toward my tonsils. My salivary glands are in overdrive, drool gushes into my mouth and my nose is running.

This all from eating a piece the size of a sesame seed.

The Moruga Scorpion, a squat, reddish-orange chile with a perky tail, like a stinger, is over 300 times hotter than a jalapeño. It is one of a new class of chiles called “Superhots” that are, as the name implies, way, way hotter than most hot peppers.

With wicked-sounding names like the Ghost Pepper and the Carolina Reaper, they are crossbreeds of peppers that have been grown traditionally in India and Trinidad but were virtually unknown in the U.S. until recently. However, with hot sauce just behind social gaming and solar panel manufacturing as one of our fastest growing industries, Superhots have been, not surprisingly, discovered in the past few years. The Internet helped. A 2010 story about the Indian government using the Ghost Pepper to make a tear gas hand grenade was picked up everywhere, and soon after, Superhots became the Kopi Luwak of the chile world: highly sought after and considered to be the primo shit.

“It used to be the habanero was the hottest thing around,” says Mike Hultquist, a chile blogger and cookbook author who’s developed over 100 recipes for jalapeño poppers. “Now it’s all about the Superhots.”

Among commercial growers, there’s an arms race to see who can breed the hottest Superhot of all, with the crowning achievement being the Guinness World Record. It is currently held by the Trinidad Scorpion Butch T, a Superhot grown by Mississippi plumber and home gardener Butch Taylor, in partnership with the Australia-based Hippy Seed Company. But rivals, like Duffy with his Moruga Scorpion and Ed Currie of North Carolina’s PuckerButt Pepper Company with his Carolina Reaper, are determined to unseat it.

“I’ve just accepted that I’ll have to pay over $19,000 to get the record,” says Currie, who has put his pepper through rigorous, expensive lab tests, to convince Guinness. “I’m in too deep at this point to stop now.”

There’s a serious commercial advantage to being the official grower of the official hottest pepper in the world. Superhot seeds aren’t commercially available from large seed companies, so heat freaks wishing to grow their own have to buy them online from small suppliers like Duffy and Currie. Being able to market yourself as the record holder is great advertising. Hot sauce makers, who generally contract with one main grower, sell more sauce with a world-famous chile on the label.

“The Superhot peppers are an extremely valuable commodity,” says Dave DeWitt, an author and chile expert who runs the industry’s biggest event, The National Fiery Foods and Barbecue Show in Albuquerque, New Mexico. A typical Scorpion pepper pod at a farmers’ market will go for one dollar, notes DeWitt. “Think if you had an acre of these things; think how much money you could generate. Behind marijuana, they have the potential to become the second- or third-highest yielding crop per acre monetarily.”

Superhots might be a “thing” now but extreme hot pepper fans, dubbed “Chileheads,” have existed for decades. These are people obsessed with hot food, who add hot sauce to everything from spaghetti sauce to coffee, vying to see who can go hotter. They make pilgrimages to hot sauce conventions. Post reviews of spicy caramel sauce and ghost pepper barbecue sauce on their blogs. Share schematics of hydroponic chile “grow boxes.”

Ed Currie of Carolina Reaper fame started growing Superhots in the 1980s, after reading about them in an old National Geographic article and tracking down seeds via letter. Butch Taylor, current Guinness Record holder, got his seeds through a private MSN forum he belonged to throughout the 1990s.

Chiles are perennials and can live from year to year, producing fruit. The more arid the temperature, the more the plant is stressed, and the hotter the fruit it bears. Paul Bosland, director of The Chile Pepper Institute, a research institute within New Mexico State University, describes Chileheads’ relationships with their plants as anthropomorphic.

“We have members who give them a name, like Fred or Peter, and grow very attached,” he says. “When they die, they mourn.”

Ted Barrus, aka “Ted the Fire Breathing Idiot,” is one of a growing number of chileheads who make YouTube videos of themselves eating entire raw Superhots, then recording their reactions. A cross between Jackass and a video of somebody having a bad acid trip, Barrus wretches, eyes red, and in extreme pain moans things like: “It feels like an atomic bomb in my stomach now!”

Nonetheless, Barrus tells me that through his “roller coaster of pain” there is a “massive endorphin rush” that keeps him coming back for more.

“I’ll give you my personal opinion for why Superhots are so popular right now,” says Currie. “Drug addiction.”

He may be right. When the chemical compound capsaicin comes in contact with mucous membranes, the body releases endorphins to counteract the pain. Chileheads describe feeling something akin to runner’s high.

“They don’t get physically addicted to chile peppers as much as they get psychologically addicted,” says DeWitt. “That’s why so many people carry something with them at all times—mini bottles of hot sauce, what have you.” DeWitt recently received a gift from a Chilehead friend in Italy, which included vials of chili pepper of ascending heat housed in a custom leather carrying case with snaps.

The subculture even has its own language: Chileheads speak in Scoville Heat Units, or Scovilles, as in: “At 3 million Scovilles, this sauce is nuclear!” The terminology has a curious history. In 1912, pharmacologist Wilbur Scoville tried to figure out how to make medicine with capsaicin in it palatable. He developed a test where he put capsaicin extract into a sugar water solution and kept adding more sugar water until human tasters could no longer perceive the heat. The resulting ratio of sugar water to capsaicin extract became the official measure of a particular chile’s heat, or its Scoville Heat Units (SHU.) (A pepper’s heat is now tested via high performance liquid chromotology, but is, curiously, then converted back to Scoville Heat Units.)

But if capsaicin really was a drug, Chileheads would all be mainlining pure C, and they’re not. (They could if they wanted: there are products on the market like The Source—bottled pure liquid capsaicin that comes with its own Indiana Jones-esque display case. At 7.1 million Scoville Units, the extract is over six times hotter than the hottest peppers grown by guys like Duffy.)

The thing is, all heat is not created equal. Bosland, of the New Mexico Chili Institute, has identified 22 related alkaloids that give the sensation of heat, and each one reacts differently in the human mouth producing a different, for lack of a better word, high.

“How fast does the heat come on? Instant or delayed? How long does it linger? Minutes, or hours? Where on the mouth do you feel it? Tip of your lips, mid-palate, throat? Is the heat sharp like pins sticking you, or flat like someone is painting the heat in your mouth?” says Bosland.

Hotsauce maker John “CaJohn” Hard, for instance, talks about the ghost chili “coming on” more slowly, versus the Scorpion’s attack as “instant” and “needle-like.”

Peoples’ reactions to various peppers are subjective. The number of receptors we have varies from person to person, which is why some can eat super hot food and others can hardly handle Taco Bell hot sauce. And yet, as a population, we are becoming overall more accustomed to spicy food. Check out your average college kids bellying up for a hangover brunch, and you’ll see them reaching for Sriracha, not ketchup.

“You never hear people say, ‘I’ve tried hot and spicy and now I’ve gone back to bland,’” says Hard. “They keep seeking hotter and hotter.”

And truth be told, after the drooling let up, and I’d gone on about my day, I couldn’t get the lingering memory of the Moruga Scorpion out of my head. Like that first cup of coffee in the morning, it woke me up and gave a certain sparkle to my day. I’m not ready to become “Ted the Fire Breathing Idiot” anytime soon, but I think he’s onto something. There’s pleasure in the pain. I might be a Chilehead after all.

peppers,seeds,info and more Find them...

disgustingkitchen — Sat, 06 Apr 2013 01:07:46 -0400

peppers,seeds,info and more

Find them here.

http://www.chiligrower.com

http://www.oldbarnnursery.com

I think you are Funny as hell in a stupid way, which is my type of humor. but I must ask that when you do your pepper eating challenges Please for the love of anything you choose, spend a Min. and give a warning, My 10 year old wants to eat ghost peppers now because in some dysfunctional way he thinks he will be cooler in his friends eyes. but either way Rock on and keep up the cool work. Thank you From Dennis,

disgustingkitchen — Sun, 31 Mar 2013 15:20:35 -0400

Just made a video for the little man

http://youtu.be/SuytHepGwY8

GOOD PEANUTS FROM THE UK

disgustingkitchen — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 13:24:17 -0400

GOOD PEANUTS FROM THE UK