Bhut Jolokia

On Sunday night, I reached a new milestone in my quest for the ultimate hottest food. We were watching the Bears game with a couple of Vikings fans (ugh) at a place called Wings, Pizza, and Things in Tucson. Naturally, I ordered the Wings of Fire in order to give them a taste.

About half way through my meal, the waitress came up to me and asked if they were too hot. I told her that they had a good flavor, but they just were not that hot. She began telling me about a sauce that the cooks were making a few days back which made them all cry in pain. So of course, when she asked if I would be willing to try it I did not hesitate.

The kind waitress brought out the sauce and I dipped my remaining wings in it without a problem. It was spicy.....but still not quite enough for me. In an effort to get out of christmas shopping, I accepted a bet to drink the remaining sauce straight out of the cup. (I also locked in a deal to get homemeade sweet tea for one year from McKenzie...oh yeah). After finishing the sauce, I didn't even need to drink in order to remove the heat.

Unbeknownst to me, the person who supplies the restaurant with the hot peppers to make the sauce was sitting right behind me....go figure. He told me that when they made the sauce, they mixed the capsacion from his peppers with some habeneros and that they should have just given me his peppers instead. He then offered to go back into the kitchen and bring me out a whole pepper. The peppers he grows are known as the Indian Bhut Jolokia (ghost chile) peppers.

He brought the pepper out and i took a small bite...nothing. I then took a larger bite and kept the pepper in my mouth for a few seconds. I felt the heat began to grow and I admit that it was spicy. But I still didn't need anything to drink afterwards. It was at this point that I decided that I must have burn out my heat receptors in my taste buds over the years.

The pepper provider was really cool and he actually had someone from home bring me some more bhut jokias along with some red habeneros. I had some chopped up in scrambled eggs this morning and it was delicious. I plan on making chili this weekend so we will see how that goes.....