My Dad told me a couple of weeks ago that The Pickwick was advertising their newest appetizer, the Ghost Chili Wings, and he said something to the effect about the World's Hottest Pepper or something or other. I joined him for lunch there today after we were at the gun show, and I just had to order it!
My wonderful Server (nursing student), Ariel, gave me a warning slip that read:
Pickwick Restaurant (Pickwick Inc., A Minnesota Corporation), is not responsible for overindulgence and certain side effects will and may occur. These effects may include but are not limited to: Runny Nose, Crying, Hyperventilation, Excess Perspiration, Raising Heart Rate, Redness in Face, Burning Lips, Uncontrollable Drooling, Gasping of Air. Do not drink water water while consuming this product, as this may/will prolong the effects. If you feel that your mouth is burning it is just your brain telling it to. You should ask your Professional Server or Bartender for advice on a cure for the intense sensation (Tony's Note: a White Russian would possibly alleviate the burn). After handling product please wash hands thoroughly before touching or rubbing eyes, nostrils, or anything else that you may be thinking of touching in a 12 hour period after handling product.
 I was all fine with this. I have good and long experience with hot peppers. Ariel told me they come prepared in Levels from 1 to 10, and so far the hottest anyone had tried was Level 4. So of course I told her to make mine a 10. She triple-checked, just to make sure I was serious, and out they came about ten minutes later.
So, are they hot? You bet your sweet bippy they are hot! Are they TOO hot? No, but for most people they will be. They still had fantastic flavor, which is important, because just stupid hot with no flavor is kind of pointless in my book. The heat (pain) was a bit creepy, meaning it sort of came in a delayed effect. Once it came on for real, I was only two wings shy of finishing the delights, so I ended up eating the last two with a devilish endorphin-rushed grin. Will I eat them again? You bet! Are they the hottest wings I have ever had? Again, you bet your sweet frickin' ass they were! Wow! And I have ordered thermonuclear/atomic wings at some pretty famous places before. None have come close to these in foot-stomping, eye-tearing intensity. I was not literally jumping up and down after eating my Ghost Chili Wings, but let me tell you, they were very seriously way damn hot. I might have actually seen Jesus, and I am not kidding. Streams of tears were running like fountains out of my eyes, and I did start to hiccup at one point. I literally licked clean the side-bowl of blue cheese dressing after eating the wings, just to tame the fire. The warning about drinking water, and how it intensifies the effects? That turns out to be painfully true. A big, tall, cold chocolate milkshake would be a great dessert after eating these puppies.
Several of the staff came over during and after just to see how I was doing, and my friend Nicole (a veteran Pickwick Server) said the dishwasher was almost overpowered when he sprayed off my plate with the leftover wing bones. He came out to see me and said I was truly crazy, while wiping his eyes. I told Ariel she can brag that one brave customer ordered the Ten Version and lived to tell it, but I warned her to make sure her future customers knew what they were doing before ordering the Ten. It really does get your attention in a real hurry, and I am still feeling the effects three hours later as I write this at home. The scariest part is the event that is going to happen later this evening or perhaps tomorrow morning. Sometimes the Part II is worse than the Part I...if you catch my drift. It has me kind of worried, actually.
Chief Wiggum: "I've added an extra ingredient just for you...The Merciless Peppers of Quetzl Zako Tanango, grown deep in the jungle primevel by the inmates of a Guatamalan Insane Asylum!" (The Pickwick just tossed the wings vigorously for me...)
  Note to Ben: You've actually tasted a sport-sample of Dave's Insanity Sauce, and that ridiculously hot sauce rates at just a "mere" 180,000 Scoville Units. Just to put it in perspective! And now these bhut jolokia peppers rate at just a bit over 1,000,000 Scoville Units. A million? WTF? If nobody else does, I will ask: why even cook a dish with them? Seriously, why would you ever want something this damn hot? Granted, it still did have flavor, so it has that going for it. But Jesus Tap-Dancing Christ, it is just way hot, man! There is an Urban Legend that Dvae's Insanity Sauce gave some poor guy a mild stroke at a contest once, and I believe it. These bhut jolokia peppers could do it!
I subjected several of my friends to a round of sampling Dave's Insanity Sauce once (back in 1994 or so), Ben included, and it was possibly the most hysterically funny thing I have ever seen. One after the other (I started first), we watched as the previous guy went totally berserk from the heat, and after we finally stopped laughing, the next guy tried it on a tortilla chip, down the line. And Dave's is actually tame, compared to this pepper!!! Yowza!
By the way, Dave's Gourmet is selling a Limited Edition "Ghost Pepper" Hot Sauce, at the somewhat sharp price of $35, so to my friends (and my enemies, I suppose), be my guest and try it out.
The Pickwick provided me a printed copy story by Tim Sullivan, an Associated Press writer, about the "Ghost Chili":
WORLD'S HOTTEST CHILI IS A "GHOST"
(08/01/2007) Tim Sullivan (AP): Changpool, India - The farmer, a quiet man with an easy smile, has spent a lifetime eating a chili pepper with a strange name and a vicious bite. His mother stirred them into sauces. His wife puts them out for dinner raw to be nibbled - carefully, very carefully - with whatever she's serving.
Around here, in the hills of northeastern India, it's called the bhut jolokia - the "ghost chili." Anyone who has tried it, they say, could end up an apparition.
"It is so hot you can't even imagine," said the farmer, Digonta Saikia. "When you eat it, it's like dying."
Outsiders, he insisted, shouldn't even try it. "If you eat one," he told a visitor, "you will not be able to leave this place."
If you think you've had a hotter chili pepper, you're wrong.
The smallest morsels can flavor a sauce so intensely it's barely edible. Eating a raw sliver causes watering eyes and a runny nose. An entire chili is an all- out assault on the senses, akin to swigging a cocktail of battery acid and glass shards.
For generations, though, it's been loved in India's northeast, eaten as a spice, a cure for stomach troubles and, paradoxically, a way to fight the summer heat.
Now, though, with scientific proof that barreled the bhut jolokia into the record books - it has more than 1,000,000 Scoville units, the scientific measurement of a chili's spiciness - northeast India is taking its chili to the outside world.
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| Farmer Digonta Saikia shows a "Bhut jolokia" or "ghost chili" pepper plucked from his field in the northeastern Indian state of Assam, Wednesday, July 4, 2007. (AP | Manish Swarup) |
Exporters are eagerly courting the international community of rabid chili-lovers, a group that has traded stories for years about a mysterious, powerful Indian chili. Farmers are planting new fields of bhut jolokias, and government officials are talking about development programs.
Chances are no one will get rich. But in a region where good news is a rarity, the world record status has meant a lot of pride - and a little more business.
"It has got tremendous potential," says Leena Saikia, the managing director of Frontal Agri Tech, a food business in the northeastern state of Assam that has been in the forefront of bhut jolokia exports.
Last year, her company shipped out barely a ton of the chilis. This year, amid the surge in publicity, the goal is 10 tons to nearly a dozen countries.
For now, at least, transport issues and a tangle of government regulations mean most exports are of dried bhut jolokias and chile paste. But, Saikia added, the paste can be used for everything from hot sauces to tear gas. Because the heat is so concentrated, food manufacturers in need of seasoning can use far less bhut jolokia than they would normal chiles.
India's northeast is a deeply troubled area where more than two dozen ethnic militant groups are fighting the Indian government and one another. Many areas remain largely off-limits to foreigners and few days pass without at least one killing.
"Maybe this bhut jolokia can help change things here," says Ranjana Bhuyan, a high-school teacher shopping for vegetables in the Assamese town of Jorhat on a recent evening. Like most people here, she mixes them into sauces, or pickles them as a sort of spicy relish, but also likes to eat tiny pieces raw, enjoying the flavor and the sharp jolt.
"People have been eating this forever," she says.
Only in the past few years, though, has the rest of the world even heard of it. In 2000, the government's Assam-based Defense Research Laboratory announced the bhut jolokia as the world's hottest chile. But its tests, reportedly done during research on tear gas, took years to be corroborated.
The confirmation came earlier this year from New Mexico State University's Chile Pepper Institute.
The institute got its first bhut jolokia seeds in 2001, but it took years to grow enough peppers for testing. Their results, backed up by two independent labs and heralded by Guinness, were astonishing.
A chile's spiciness can be scientifically measured by calculating its content of capsaicin, the chemical that gives a pepper its bite, and counting its Scoville units.
And how hot is the bhut jolokia? As a way of comparison: Classic Tabasco sauce ranges from 2,500 to 5,000 Scoville units. Your basic jalapeño measures anywhere from 2,500 to 8,000. 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.
"Maybe this bhut jolokia can help change things here," says Ranjana Bhuyan, a high school teacher shopping for vegetables in the Assamese town of Jorhat on a recent evening.
Like most people here, she normally mixes bhut jolokia into sauces, or pickles them as a sort of spicy relish, but also likes to eat tiny piceses raw, enjoying the flavor and the sharp jolt. "People have been eating this forever," she says.
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