Well, not quite in town as we will see. . .but the habanero pepper has been replaced as the spiciest pepper in the world by the bhut jolokia. . .the ghost chili. So named because they say any outsider that dares to try it will become an apparition. However, the spiciest chili pepper in the world, is a staple at every meal in towns like Assam in India. People eat raw slivers for the ‘jolt’, use it to flavor their soup, and it is purported to fix a variety of ailments from stomach troubles to ironically, overheating.
Bhut jolokia comes from North Eastern India, a region that is in turmoil with over one third of its population below poverty level. The major export for this region has been tea but prices are declining. With its title as the hottest chili pepper in the world, the locals hope that the bhut jolokia will become the savior of the region. Indeed, with public interest on the rise due to the superlative proclamation of the Guiness Book of World Records, already the agricultural business of shipping seeds and chili paste made from bhut jolokia is on the increase.
With rolling hills, humid warm temperatures, and fertile soil it is the ideal green house for the bhut jolokia which reportedly is a very temperamental plant to grow. Reports of this mysterious chili pepper in India began to surface in 2000 but it took until 2004 for the Chili Pepper Institute in New Mexico to grow enough peppers to test them and scientifically prove that the bhut jolokia is in fact the hottest chili pepper in the world.
And just how do you measure the hotness of a chili pepper? With Scolville Units of course. Every hot pepper contains a chemical called capsaicin so the Scolville Unit is the measure of capsaicin in a pepper. Capsaicin is the chemical that gives a pepper its heat. So something like a green bell pepper has a Scolville unit of 0.
And how hot is the bhut jolokia? To compare, classic Tabasco sauce ranges from 2,500 to 5,000 Scoville units. A basic jalapeno pepper measures anywhere from 2,500 to 8,000 Scolville units. The previous record holder, the Red Savina habanero, was tested at up to 580,000 Scovilles.
The bhut jolokia crushed those contenders, testing at 1,001,304 Scoville units. To give another indication of its hotness, one of its selling points is its versatility: put it in your soup or use it in tear gas.
Hmmm. . .with an advertisement like that, I think I’ll stick to my bell peppers!
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