Wednesday, March 7, 2007

Weird News: The red, red, red, red, red hot chili peppers

This is too hot for me!
Paul Bosland recalls taking a bite of a chili pepper and feeling like he was breathing fire.
He gulped down a soda, thinking, “That chili has got to be some kind of record.”
The Guinness Book of World Records agreed, confirming recently that Bosland, a regents professor at New Mexico State University, had discovered the world’s hottest chili pepper, Bhut Jolokia, a naturally occurring hybrid native to the Assam region of northeastern India.
The name translates as ghost chili, Bosland said.
“We’re not sure why they call it that, but I think it’s because the chili is so hot, you give up the ghost when you eat it,” he said.
Bhut Jolokia comes in at 1,001,304 Scoville heat units, a measure of hotness for a chili. It’s nearly twice as hot as Red Savina, the variety it replaces as the hottest.
By comparison, a New Mexico green chili contains about 1,500 Scoville units; an average jalapeno measures at about 10,000.
LINK

1 comment:

Sherry said...

Yikes! If you throw one of those in a pot of beans it should simmer by itself.