
Essential Viewing
There are 2 ways you can say this phrase: ‘Oh my god did you watch that?’ And the tone you use will pre-warn the person you’re asking of your own personal reaction to what you saw.
Try it – first in a tone of amazement, adoration. ‘Oh my god, did you watch that’ (great wasn’t it, I did too…)
Next, in a tone of disgust. ‘Oh. My. God. Did you watch that?’ (it was awful, I couldn’t believe what I saw)
This morning’s toast was left dangling from my gob when I saw the YouTube link to Dustin Johnson (not the golfer but the ‘Atomik Menace’ no less) scoffing his way through 122 Carolina Reapers.
My mind said those words to me ‘oh my god did I just watch that’, but even now I can’t work out which tone my mind was using.
Let’s digest that feat for just a moment. 122. One-hundred-and-twenty-two of the recognised Hottest Chilli Pepper in the world today. I use the word ‘feat’ deliberately as I’d begrudge calling it an ‘achievement’ (because my mind can’t determine what he was trying to achieve) nor ‘accomplishment’ (again my silly old head doesn’t know what he set out to accomplish). So while I’m not belittling the effort I’m trying really hard to answer some questions in my own mind.
Why stop at 122 I asked myself? Its certainly a lot to
consume, fair play, 1.5lbs in fact, so was it simply that DJ/AM was full up at
122, or were there no more peppers available, for example? Surely heat capacity
doesn’t come into play – if you can tolerate 30 of these peppers, 50, 71, 87,
103… whatever… then by 122 you’ve well-overcome that Scoville hurdle, right? So
it couldn’t be that 122 was the tolerable threshold for the burn, I told myself.
My toast was going cold, and now unconsciously tapping it on my chin, I
continued pondering…
Why the Reaper? If it wasn’t the burn threshold to be
determined, perhaps volume or capacity were the key target? So if you’re going
to eat 122 of anything, wouldn’t it be more satisfying to endure something less
likely to illicit harm? Peaking at 2.2M SHU the Reaper is as potent as
commercial pepper spray.
Let’s not kid ourselves that our
challenger loves the taste of the reaper so much he just fancied 122 of them.
Or maybe I’m wrong. Come on mind, think.
OK brain, if volume was the driver here, why even use a chilli of any kind –
why not 122 new potatoes or 1.5lbs of mini kievs? If it was a demonstration of
how many somethings you can consume, surely those would be equally ‘impressive’,
no?
Brushing the crumbs from my stubble, I decided to park the
question of ‘why’. My brain wasn’t ready, clearly. Then I thought about the
physical consumption. I began think about what it might do to the body? I know
what it’d do to mine! And the scientific evidence tells us what that kind of
volume and SHU level should be doing to Dustins. What makes him immune?
The video clip I saw (and I reckon there a few different versions/edits online
by now) shows him barely breaking sweat – he doesn’t even remove his cap until
pepper 75, about 5 mins and 20 seconds in!
Then the cynical counter-argument pipes up in my head as I watch again. Wait a
minute…I thought, is this video edited in such a way that these peppers are not
actually eaten consecutively in one sitting? Pah! Is it even filmed the same
day – maybe he’s taking a break after each one goddammit, yeah I bet that’s it.
Have I been tricked? If so, why bother? That’s not worth anyone’s toast getting
cold for. Nah it can’t be trick photography, let’s give the video editor – and of
course Dustin – the benefit of the
doubt.
So taking camera Tom-foolery away, the question remains – how
does he do it?
Up pops cynical me again, Mr ‘I-can-eat-4-scotch-bonnets-maybe’. I bet he’s got
a condom on his tongue…. How do we know they’re real peppers, not something
else, which I can’t think of, something
cheaty. Move on. OK If they are real peppers how do we know they’re not
from a batch of runts? Pathetic, lame low-powered imitations of Carolina
Reaper?
And actually that invokes another variable: The validity of the SHU scale and
where these particular peppers fall within its range. While it peaks at
2.2 SHU, the official AVERAGE rating of a Carolina Reaper is 1.56 SHU. Taking
the difference between average and peak (.64 SHU), and deducting the same value
from the average (1.56) to find the lower end of the Reapers’ grading, my maths
tell me that some of these peppers could bottom-out at around ‘only’ 0.92 SHU (920,000
scovilles). Still a punch, don’t get me wrong, but if this batch of pods were
all around that lower mark, is that a true reflection of what pain I’m assuming
this fella is enduring as I watch on. Should I feel swizzed if they are not ‘proper’
1.5 SHU-ers, or above.
Time and again I convince myself that I’m clutching at straws. So time and again I return to the question of WHY?
Maybe I’ve answered it myself – because I can’t answer it
myself. I can’t get it right in my own head, and maybe that’s it. That’s why it’s
so fascinating, such click bait, such a crowd puller. It’s the
incomprehensible, the subjective, It’s the intrigue of trying to understand why
on earth anyone would do that, and how.
It’s that ‘can it be true’ element that chilli enthusiasts and industry peers
love and hate in equal measure. When we look back at Sid completing 20
something peppers, brilliant!! Shahina
noshing 50 something, unbelievable. And now this… where does it take us.
Some onlookers will cream over this video, others will cringe. The higher that
bar goes, the more it’s going to hurt when it falls, and if there comes a time that
someone publicly gets hurt – really hurt – then as an industry we’re in danger
of the authorities banging restrictions across the board, in the same way they regulate
ABV% of alcohol, for example.
Make no mistake these feats are a spectacle upon which our chilli community
thrive and – like watching a tightrope walker crossing the Grand Canyon without
a safety net, the crowds will turn out in their droves to watch the
competitions, the cyber audiences will keep clicking, and the questions will remain….
Oh my God, Did you just watch that?
What a great article. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this. Keep up the good work