Cheeky Chili

I guess it was only a matter of time, but yet again – the ‘sizzle level’ has been raised up a notch and the World Record looks as if it could be soon under new ownership.

Officially (according to the Guinness World Record), the Naga Viper is the world’s hottest at a crazy 1.38 million Scoville Units. But the team at the Chili Factory in New South Wales Australia look to have outdone it! According to the Sydney Morning Herald on 12 April 2011, the Trinidad Scorpion Butch T. as it is has known has been tested and measured 1.46 million scoville units.

Of course, this yet needs verification by Guinness, but it looks as if the record could be heading ‘Down Under’.

The experience has been likened to ‘applying a soldering iron to tongue and throat!’ The grower, Marcel De Wit offered little in suggestion when asked how to use them in cooking, simply explaining ‘sparingly’………

Even we may give that one a miss

Four Indian scientists have discovered that a type of chili pepper grown in the country’s northeast has one of the highest Scoville units of pure capsaicin — a measure of hotness.

This chilli pepper is called the Tezpur chili pepper, after the area where it is grown; scientists say the pepper has beaten Mexico’s Red Savina Habanero, widely acclaimed as the hottest chili pepper in the world.

The Tezpur chilli was rated having 855,000 Scoville units whereas the Mexican chilli contains 557,000 Scoville units of pure capsaicin. This chilli pepper is however not the hottest as that to date is still the Dorset Naga with a Scoville reading of 923,000.

Tezpur lies on the banks of the river Brahmaputra about 112 miles from Guwahati, the main city of Assam, which is better known for its flavoursome tea than its chili peppers.

India is one of the world’s top producers of chili peppers, exporting an estimated 35 tonnes a year.

In the City of Havelock they have just celebrated their 29^th annual festival.

More than 20,000 people consumed gallons and gallons of chili at the North Carolina State Chili Festival in Havelock.

On Saturday, attendees could buy small cups of chili for $1 from each of 15 different stations, offering everyone a variety from mild to the extremely hot.

Whether it’s green chili or red; spicy or mild, they’ve got you covered.

The event gets bigger every year, last year they ran out of chili, they don’t want that to happen again.

The competition is friendly but for most a secret ingredient is just that.

A red hot event keeping folks in the east coming back for more.

A farmer air-dries the harvested chili pepper in Neihuang County, central China’s Henan Province, Oct. 16, 2010. As the harvest season comes to an end this year, farmers were busy reaping the harvest of their hard work on the World Food Day on Saturday.

A whole load of chili's