The world’s hottest chili tastes like “acid in your mouth”
There are two points on the Scoville Scale you don’t want to know about: the point where the pain caused by eating a chili pepper will make a human being pass out, and the point where the damage would be serious enough to warrant hospitalisation. I’ve hit one of those, with the infamous Bhut Jolokia from Nagaland; and I’d rather not find out what the other pain point is like.
The Scoville Scale measures the heat of chilis in comparative terms. Tabasco sauce ranks between 2,000 to 8,000 Scoville units; Guntur chilis from Andhra Pradesh, Scotch Bonnet peppers and habaneros come in at 100,000 to 350,000 units; and the Naga Jolokia or Bhut Jolokia used to head the list at a tongue-scorching 855,000 to 1,075,000 units. Bite into the wrong Bhut Jolokia and this is what happens: the taste buds inflame and swell, the pain circuits in your brain go on overdrive — and if you’re like me, you smile weakly at your host and crash off your chair onto the floor.
But the Bhut Jolokia — Bhut, according to various sources, standing for ‘ghost’ chili (this is apocryphal), or ‘from Bhutan’ (this, too, is apocryphal) — long seen as the world’s hottest chili, has competition. Chili growers in Dorset came up with the Infinity chili recently. Eating one, says Infinity grower Woody Woods in news reports, is like putting acid in your mouth. Those with toughened taste buds could bite into a habanero or a Guntur chili, even a Bhut Jolokia, and survive. The Infinity, undiluted, would test even the most hardened chili-eater.
Like most foodies, I’m not at heart a chili fan. Despite its reputation for having tons of Vitamin C, chili is the most blanketing of tastes, allowing for the least nuance — one of the reasons why it was traditionally used not just to preserve foods, but to cover up the taste of vegetables and meats on the edge of spoiling. The infamous Phaal curry, a UK restaurant invention considered to be the hottest curry in the world, drowns your taste buds in the loud insistent blare of chili. Beyond bragging rights in macho, ‘I survived this chili stakes’, there’s little to recommend it.
In Orissa, Andhra Pradesh and large swathes of the northeast, versions of a fiery chili chutney that accompanies many main meals use exactly this aspect of the power of capsaicin to stretch meals, or cover up for the lack of other ingredients. Feed enough of a pounded chili chutney to your guests, and they will a) eat less b) be content with rice and water c) get at least some vitamins into their systems.
But perhaps the best way to use chilis is to aim for tiny explosions of heat, or to try to bring out the more subtle side of these ferocious peppers. Thai cuisine employs bird’s eye chilis — the tiny red ones, curved like miniature scimitars — to create splashes of colour, especially effective against a background of bok choy or spinach greens, and manageable bursts of heat in your mouth. Sichuan peppers are an old favourite, for chefs who can handle their heat — they score with their intense aroma, which has an almost floral fragrance married to the usual intensity of chilis. Most Chinese chefs will also point out that many Sichuan pepper-inspired dishes will use the peppers, but will require diners to lift out the fish, meat or vegetables cooked in the sauce — so you get the flavour without the palate crucifixion. And the Mexicans tame the jalapeno’s sting by smoking it, bringing out a rich, intense flavour not dissimilar to the flavour of smoked red peppers (a mellower cousin from the same family).
I’m fascinated by the Infinity pepper — but from a distance. Years ago, Madhur Jaffrey shared the classic Asian way (common to Indian, Vietnamese, Thai and Malaysian cuisines) of getting the best out of the chili pepper without blasting your palate into cinders: slit the chili, remove the seeds, and use the body of the pepper to add colour and a suggestion of heat. Chili purists may disagree, but I’d say it’s the best way to retain the nuances without incurring the risk of a hospital visit.
[Nilanjana S Roy is a Delhi-based freelance writer]
