Superhot peppers can do more than make you sweat

[Anna N]

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 Man suffers hole in his oesophagus from eating a ghost pepper purée on a hamburger. 

[TicTac]

Stupidity knows no bounds.

 

 

 

[Tri2Cook]

Anything can happen, can't rule out the possibility. But one or two cases of something severe happening out of the thousands who eat this sort of thing all the time with no troubles doesn't incite me to worry. Thousands of people ride bikes every day but the news articles only talk about the one or two that get hit by a car or something. I keep riding. I've been eating superhot peppers, purees and sauces for years with no troubles worse than fearing the next day's morning constitutional when the plumbing starts moving. The thing about the superhot varieties is, if you can handle the fire, some of them have a really nice, fruity flavor that I haven't found in any of the more tame varieties.

[Wayne]

 

Sounds like "I can eat the hottest thing on the menu" boast after a few cold ones.

 

I'll have to agree with @Tri2Cook on this one. I have been growing, cooking, preserving and eating hot peppers for many years and I've given up on explaining to friends and family who don't share my 'chili head' ways and can't/won't accept 'to each his own'.

 

I grew Bhut jolokia (ghost pepper) 3 years ago and, as with any new pepper, slowly worked out how to use it effectively. Making a mash and slathering it on a burger would have been the last thing I would have tried. Conclusion was it really only contributed heat and I'd be much better served growing peppers that contributed heat and flavour.

 

 

 

[Paul Bacino]

I ate a whole roasted scorpion pepper accidently once.  I had two waves a gastric crisis.  that buckled me over.  Turned me white and thought I might get sick.

 

I had originally thought they were Habanero..  ooops

 

Tomato and Pepper soup

 

 

 

[TicTac]

1 minute ago, Paul Bacino said:

I ate a whole roasted scorpion pepper accidently once.  I had two waves a gastric crisis.  that buckled me over.  Turned me white and thought I might get sick.

 

I had originally thought they were Habanero..  ooops

 

Tomato and Pepper soup

 

 

 

 

Are you implying that you would eat a - whole - roasted - habanero!?

 

 

[Cyberider]

18 hours ago, Tri2Cook said:

Anything can happen, can't rule out the possibility. But one or two cases of something severe happening out of the thousands who eat this sort of thing all the time with no troubles doesn't incite me to worry. Thousands of people ride bikes every day but the news articles only talk about the one or two that get hit by a car or something. I keep riding. I've been eating superhot peppers, purees and sauces for years with no troubles worse than fearing the next day's morning constitutional when the plumbing starts moving. The thing about the superhot varieties is, if you can handle the fire, some of them have a really nice, fruity flavor that I haven't found in any of the more tame varieties.

 

Agree on both counts.  Been riding for transportation my whole life and am over 200K miles.  Maybe I'll make a quarter-million if I don't get run over!  As for hot peppers, I've only developed a taste for them late in life but put them in anything I can.  Not only that, but they're supposed to be good for us as long as we don't overdo like a few have.

[Okanagancook]

Our Superstore has had ghost peppers for sale lately....5 or 6 in the package!

[chromedome]

2 hours ago, TicTac said:

Are you implying that you would eat a - whole - roasted - habanero!?

 

 

 

I used to do a stuffed habanero appetizer. It sold pretty well. 

[pastrygirl]

Sounds horrible, but I wonder what actually happened.  Was the tissue inflamed by the capsaicin then tore from the force of vomiting, or did the peppers actually burn a hole like a chemical burn?  Would he have been OK if not for the vomiting?  I do love spicy food, but don't need to prove anything by eating ghost peppers.

[TicTac]

10 minutes ago, chromedome said:

 

I used to do a stuffed habanero appetizer. It sold pretty well. 

 

I cannot imagine eating an entire habanero.

 

The immediate experience itself aside, the day(s) to follow would be hellish!

 

 

[chromedome]

38 minutes ago, pastrygirl said:

Sounds horrible, but I wonder what actually happened.  Was the tissue inflamed by the capsaicin then tore from the force of vomiting, or did the peppers actually burn a hole like a chemical burn?  Would he have been OK if not for the vomiting?  I do love spicy food, but don't need to prove anything by eating ghost peppers.

 

As I read it, he tore a hole in his esophagus from vomiting. Presumably one might experience similarly evil effects from improperly-stored Thanksgiving leftovers, or a bottle or two of hooch. 

[Tri2Cook]

50 minutes ago, chromedome said:

I used to do a stuffed habanero appetizer. It sold pretty well. 

 

38 minutes ago, TicTac said:

I cannot imagine eating an entire habanero.

Atomic Dragon Turds! Habaneros stuffed with cheese and/or meat, wrapped in bacon and grilled or smoked. Not nearly as deadly as it sounds. By the time you scoop out the innards, fill it with cheese and/or meat, baconate it and cook it, it's fire tames down quite a bit.

[Thanks for the Crepes]

Yes, I love the floral and/or vegetal notes of some peppers, and I enjoy the heat up to a limit. I do not have anything to prove either, and can't imagine intentionally subjecting myself to unpleasantness or pain.

 

I can get Habaneros and Scotch Bonnets sometimes, and some of your descriptions about stuffed ones have intrigued me. I would have dismissed them as too hot earlier. I will not be calling them by @Tri2Cook's colorful sobriquet.  I will have to taste it first to see if it's appropriate to my husband's heat tolerance, and I strongly suspect it won't be.

 

The OP is very sad. I wish people (mostly men) would quit doing "food challenges". A ruptured esophagus is a danger bulimics face,  along with severe alcoholics and is often fatal. I hope the fellow is able to recover well.

[quiet1]

I am reminded of a place I went with my dad and some friends in England, which clearly catered somewhat to the post-pub crowd and had a variety of sauces ranging from 'mild' to ones labeled 'blow your head off' which everyone was daring the others to try but no one was brave enough except my dad, who along with my mom is something of a chili-head. He put some of the 'blow your head off' on his food and tasted it. Then added more. Ate while everyone stared. Then he lined up all the sauces and tried a bit of each one - turned out the hottest sauce was actually labeled 'medium' and the ones above that in labeling were spicy, but less so. The 'blow your head off' was actually pretty mild as hot sauces go. We confirmed they were labeled the right way, yup.

 

i can only conclude this was a ruse adopted to deal with drunk idiots ribbing each other to consume ridiculous amounts of hot sauce, so as to avoid unpleasantness like people getting sick or causing trouble because their food was too hot. Seemed pretty clever to me.

 

(The 'blow your head off' was a bit more spicy than I like, because I am a wimp, but it did have a nice flavor. Better than the 'medium' which was just kind of blandly hot.)

[chromedome]

14 hours ago, TicTac said:

 

I cannot imagine eating an entire habanero.

 

The immediate experience itself aside, the day(s) to follow would be hellish!

 

 

 

Like eating beans, you build up to it. Back when I was eating hot chilies regularly, a habanero was no big deal. I likened it to meeting a stranger's large dog: No fear, as such, but a measure of respect. A Moruga Scorpion or a Carolina Reaper, now...those would be more akin to meeting a polar bear or a tiger. Major precautions required. 

 

I was eventually using roughly 1 habanero per cup of fresh salsa. I took some over to the neighbours' house one night, and still vividly remember the husband -- a drinker, and a very large man -- turning brick red and having to mop rivers of sweat from his brow. He didn't stop eating it, though. 

 

Life takes strange turns, sometimes. Those neighbours separated about six months before my wife died, and his former wife is now my girlfriend. 

[Tri2Cook]

6 hours ago, Thanks for the Crepes said:

I will not be calling them by @Tri2Cook's colorful sobriquet. 

Aww... come on. Look the hoity-toity folks right in the eye and say it with a big smile on your face as you serve them.  Seriously though, that's not my name for them. As far as I know, that's what they're actually called. The same thing made with jalapenos is Atomic Buffalo Turds.