When a pepper is described as having a slow burn lasting several hours it feels like an exaggeration designed to scare off the weak-willed. But if you’ve ever had one, you know it’s not that simple: Ghost peppers start out sweetly fruity and then, boom! Then there is heat. It’s something else entirely.
Knowing where a pepper ranks in the world spice scale help take away some of the fear factor, and show just what it can do. Here’s how all those chilis stack up against usual suspects (the chart above), and why you shouldn’t think a ghost pepper will be anything different than a jalapeño just because they’re roughly the same size.
Why Ghost Peppers Are Very Dangerous
The other pepper I’m growing is from the Bhut Jolokia (or ghost chili) family. It are native to hot, humid parts of northeastern India. This pepper was once listed as the world’s hottest by the Guinness Book of World Records, before even spicier hybrids knocked it out of first place. Even without the top spot, though, it’s still a benchmark of hot-hot-hot. On average, it rates around a million Scoville Heat Units.
This figure seem like a meaningless abstraction unless you’re reminded how much higher it rates then your ordinary cooking peppers do. Not only does an extreme pepper taste different than a mild one, it has another effect too, longer-lasting and more visceral. But then there’s the whole world of very hot peppers (such as the habanero) which really set off your pain receptors, whereas most grocery store chiles is medium or hotter (meaning more flavor than heat). And if you cross over into the extreme, well, it’s a different ballgame altogether.
As the infographic points out clearly, even the humble cayenne pepper isn’t just a warmup to the world of superhots: And this is where things get dicey, since that gap helps explain the common kitchen mishaps involving such ingredients. Underestimating the concentration of capsaicin mean days of burning throat or hands.
With these peppers in particular, you have to be careful, no, not just careful but actualy careful. Cut them wearing gloves, as any contact with bare skin will immediately allow capsaicin into your body, and there’s no putting out the fire once it gets inside. Water won’t help; if anything, it’ll cause more pain by spreading the oil around your mouth. Dairy products (such as yogurt or milk) is the only substances that offer true relief, since the casein protein in them binds to the capsaicin and flushes it down.
That’s why people who want to show off how much heat they can handle often get in over their heads: They ignore this science of it all, and pay dearly for their arrogance. For crying out loud, it works for a reason. Don’t fight the chemistry.
That’s not even getting into all the difficulties of growing them at home. Ghost peppers grows best under tropical conditions. They need lots of humidity and sun along with a lengthy growing season. This allows them to mature into a full red color, which means they are fully heated up. There is also white and chocolate versions that have a little more earthy or floral flavors mixed with the fire. But the chemistry of the peppers still works the same way.
You might use them to make hot sauces or put them in your curry. You could even use them in a defense spray. Whatever the use, the ghost pepper gets its point across by sheer force of chemicals. A small sliver can make the dish and an entire pepper may cost you your night. It’s a knife worth wielding carefully, not recklessly.
Set aside some milk, open the windows in your kitchen, and be respectful of the flames. The sting will last, but learning to control it would of let you have a controlled cooking experience instead of a painful error.