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| When your food has to remind you it's edible, that ought to be a warning sign. |
The fascination with insanely hot peppers (and the beer to wash them down with) continues. I thought the ghost pepper was the hottest in the world, and although my ghost pepper exploits haven't always been successful, I've got a pretty good handle on the hot stuff. Then I heard that a newly-discovered strain is even hotter. The ghost pepper tops out at about 1.1 million Scoville Heat Units, or the ounces of water it takes to displace the capsacin found in each pepper. That's roughly twice as hot as the habanero. As shown above, the Trinidad scorpion comes in at 1.4 million, or about 3/4 the heat of a star. Pop one of these peppers in your mouth, then stand under Niagra Falls for thirty seconds, and the heat just disappears!
The scorpion gets its name from the tip, which curls up like the stinger. I was told that Harry Singh's restaurant on Nicollet serves food with the Trinidad scorpion, but I've yet to muster the courage to try. Instead, I ordered both the peppers and a plant online. When they arrived, I let both sit for a while until I was burning with curiosity about what the scorpion tasted like.
So I cut off the tail of one pepper, placed it on the tip of my tongue...
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| Oh, I forgot to mention, do NOT handle these with your bare hands. |
