To my right, a homeless man in a similar posture of misery. Finally, I had to pause, and sat on a ledge. I was hunched over, taking baby steps through the station. But then, as I left the expo and descended into Penn Station to catch the subway home to Brooklyn, it got worse. I'd just eaten three of the world's hottest chiles, after all. Strange, I thought: Why did it take so long for this to begin? Slowly, it began to grow in intensity, but still I thought nothing of it. Sometime after 5:30, I began to notice a burning sensation just beneath my sternum. This feeling of elation last approximately one hour. Did you eat three Carolina Reapers yesterday? I didn't think so. I was one of the few, the proud, the foolhardy. (Also, one woman said: "You're from Bon Appétit? That's awesome!") When they announced the winner, who'd finished in just over 12 seconds, I didn't care that I'd come in eighth. Those who didn't enter the competition expressed wonder and admiration that I'd even tried.
#Carolina reaper pepper size full
No: I FELT GREAT! I was bouncing around, full of energy, talking to anyone and everyone I could. After that, the pain and swelling began to subside, and the endorphin rush began to kick in. I could get through this-all I had to do was wait.Īnd really, all I had to do was wait five or six minutes for the heat to reach a peak. This was pain I could take, pain I could savor. And not just because I'm lactose-intolerant. (One guy actually sprinted to the bathroom to throw up: "I have a delicate stomach," he explained.) Not me. Other competitors employed other coolants: milk, soda, olive oil, yogurt drinks.
Now my throat was really beginning to swell up-and painfully. Finally, when we'd downed all three, we had to wait 60 seconds onstage to make sure the pepper stayed down. After each one, we had to open our mouths to the judge to show we'd finished it. We'd begin with our hands on the table, and had to eat the chiles one at a time-everything but the stem. In front of a crowd of hundreds of fans amped up on hot sauce (and beer), a judge from the Guinness Book explained the rules: One by one, we'd approach a table, on which would be laid three Carolina Reapers, each weighing precisely 5 grams. I make my own Sichuan chile oil, collect dried peppers and unlabeled hot sauces from all over the world, and generally appreciate a heavy dose of spice in my life.Īnd so, on Sunday, March 30, shortly after 4 p.m., seven other hopefuls and I stood next to a stage, awaiting our moments of glory. When the organizer, Steve Seabury, asked if he should sign me up for the " Smoking Ed's Carolina Reaper Pepper Guinness Book of Records Eating Challenge"-in which contestants would vie to set the speed record for eating three Reapers-I really had no choice but to say yes. I'd previously helped judge the Expo's Screaming Mi Mi Awards, in which we blind-tasted many hot sauces to figure out which was the best. Why, you might ask, would anyone want to eat even one Carolina Reaper, which scored 1,569,300 on the Scoville heat-measuring scale? (A habanero, by contrast, rates between 100,000 and 350,000 Scoville units.) Well, I had a good excuse: I was at the Second Annual NYC Hot Sauce Expo, a gathering of 45 vendors from all over the country that drew thousands of attendees to sample hot sauces from companies with names like Defcon, Dragon's Blood Elixir, and PuckerButt (whose owner developed the Reaper). And it took me approximately 14 hours to recover from the aftermath. It took me 21.85 seconds to consume three Carolina Reapers, the world's hottest chiles.
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