Seeing A Ghost: The Hottest Pepper of Them All

The Ghost Pepper

Ghost pepper sauce is made with the now trendy Bhut Jolokia pepper grown in the northeast part of India, and is rated at one million scovilles, the scale that is used to judge hotness.  In 1912, before Paris Hilton, before the ubiquitous use of the word HOT to describe almost anything mildly interesting, Wilbur Lincoln Scoville, a chemist, developed this scale to give a numeric valuation to the heat given off by capsaicin, the active ingredient in peppers.

The Bhut Jolokia is so hot, the Defense Department is reportedly interested in it as a way to control riots. SO hot, that as you eat it, your soul is cooked out of your body, leaking out your pores as a vaporous gas, hence the name.  If you want it, you have to talk to Ananta Saikia, the only one who exports it and you are going to have to talk loudly, because to process it, Ananta and his employees have to suit up in safety gear.

I like hotness, but dislike injury to my soft, fleshy parts so I don’t know whether I am up to trying it should I find it. I just sort of want to know if it’s lurking out there somewhere, and in what.  The Bistro on Bridge in Phoenixville has wings called “The 10,000 Ghost”  which is made with them.  If you have tried them, I would love to hear A. WHY?  and B. What it was like.  Feel free to scribble notes on a pad - I’m guessing you can’t talk!

If you want to grow them, you can get seeds from a number of sources on the internet.  Just google.  You will apparently need a security fence.  HEY!  Maybe this will keep the deer out.