Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Getting in trouble with the law may be the ultimate hot pepper experience.

With all the culinary duds around, there may only be one way to get the real deal when it comes to our hot pepper fetish. (what is the plural of fetish?...fetishes or feti?).

Hmmm.

Many of you know that heat, from a pepper, is measured on the scoville scale. I have my own version of this scale, the SOS, which is covered elsewhere in detail.

The scoville scale of documenting 'heat' covers all known hot chili peppers and grades them conveniently on a scale of zero to 16 million.
Huh, 16 million?...hmmmm.

So, the crappy but ever popular Jalapeno scores low down on the scoville scale at 2500-5000.
The beautiful Habanero or scotch bonnet pepper scores a respectable 100,000 to 350,000 on the scoville scale. That's enough to put it into the 'I've been singed' category, (not burned), and earn it a nomination in the prestigious "Refrigerated Toilet Roll" awards.

But did you know that the police, when called to do so, will spray you with a "US Police Grade Pepper Spray", that measures an astonishing 2.5 to 5.3 million, on the scoville scale?....huh...baby, give it to me...

Wow.

That's a whopping 15 times more potent than our beloved Habanero.

So I encourage you to go out and create a public disturbance, then have someone on standby ready to call 911.

There are possible (in my case probable) things that can go wrong however, and you should be aware of them beforehand.
One possibility is that the gorilla you pick on beats the living crap out of you before the cops arrive. He gets pepper sprayed and they cart him off on a stretcher with a big grin on his face, while you go to the ER to begin a slow and painful recovery.
Another possible outcome is that the cops arrive and zap you with a 100,000 volt taser. Now balloons stick to you at parties and regardless of how much gel you use you can't get rid of the perm.

But hey, there's little doubt in my mind that it's worth a try.
CH

2 comments: