Naga King Chili Pepper- World’s Hottest?

Once again I turned to SKYPE with my husband and best blog idea generator to come up with a blog topic. I immediately thought of my brother, a sampler of all kinds of hot peppers, goat, ghost, and habanero to name a few, who is known for putting them in his salsa recipes and after encouraging you to try it saying, “It might be a little hot.”  (Especially if you’re reading this, bro), I dedicate this blog to him.

My husband found some material on the Bhut Jolokia as the Naga King Chili is formally known and how its hotness rating has ranged from 500,000 to 1.5 million on the Scoville Heat Unit scale. A jalapeno usually scores around 4,000 SHU. Our Skype conversation went like this:

[8:48 PM] A. Mount: How about the Naga King Chili that is often ranked the world's hottest pepper. In the Chang village of Hakchang, an anthropologist is quoted as saying 1922 "...women whose blood relations on the male side have taken a head may cook the head with the chilies to get the flesh off. That's a pretty hot pepper!!

[8:48 PM] Jo Mount: Yikes!

[8:50 PM] A. Mount: This is in northeast India - 17 tribes of Nagaland who used to headhunt but still celebrate the Naga King Chili-Eating contest. They actually take people to the hospital because these peppers are so hot even though they consume powdered milk to try and reduce the pain.

[8:51 PM] Jo Mount: Is this also in New Scientist? (a place where I find a lot of interesting tidbits to blog about…)

[8:51 PM] A. Mount: No, this is in the latest Smithsonian - Food edition.

[8:51 PM] Jo Mount: Wild. I had no idea Smithsonian had a food edition. There are plenty of cooking shows on TV and even a network dedicated to food, so why not a Smithsonian Food Edition?

[8:52 PM] A. Mount: The pepper is about 250 times hotter than a jalapeno. The Indian military has even used it as a weapon. And it seems that the people introduce their kids to the pepper early in life and then by the time they're adults, the pain receptors in their tongues have been scorched to death so they can eat the stuff.

Needless to say I wonder why anyone would want to put something that could be used to take the meat off your bones in their mouths but go figure. The rest of our conversation went quickly downhill with things like misspelling the name of the pepper from Bhut Jolokia to Butt Joke and speculation on whether or not and why the toilets in India should be made of porcelain etc. and of course, how some who've sampled my brother’s salsa (without the Naga King Chilies) might even have had similar moments of reflection!