I'm Late To The Bhut Jolokia Party. Here's What I Discovered About It

India is a treasure trove of history, mystery, culture, art, food and a lot of other things that we bring to the global world. Recently I found out that the nimbu-mirchi tradition to ward off negative energy isn't the only thing chilli we give to the world. I mean sure, there are all sorts of spicy dishes that we bring to the buffet as well. But I am talking about the list of spiciest chillis of the world.

You might be wondering what I am on about, but guess what? This guy here who eats to live and lives to eat, who travels to learn more about the world, didn't know about a chilli that is so strong that it will bring you to your knees faster than you can blink, it will set your insides on fire and how. It is so strong that the Indian Army took it up in their armory.

In that list I was mentioning is the Carolina Reaper, the seven-pot habanero, chocolate habalokia (which is anything but chocolatey). And India's contribution?

All the way from our illustrious north east part of the country comes one of the chilliest chilli in the world. Known as bhut jolokia or raja mircha (in case that is too hard for you to pronounce). And also known as the ghost chilli. Or umorok. Or ghost pepper.

This little thing shows up to over 1,041,427 SHUs on a Scoville scale (a scale used to measure the spiciness of peppers). If you want an idea of how strong that is, let me tell you that jalapeno that we use in our daily cooking is marked at 2500-8000 SHUs.

And guess what? People actually use these babies in their cooking. Think Phaal curry, or chicken vindaloo.

In my bid to find out more about this little thing, I came across this. Go on, vicarious pleasures (pain).



Yeah, this happened. And I was like, why?

Also Gordan Ramsay clearly loves his kicks where he gets them.

And such is the might of this chilli that the government, Defence Research and Development Organisation or DRDO to be specific, were developing a bhut jolokia grenade to be used against terrorists some years ago.

But that's far from home where farmers use the chilli to cure stomach ailments, other diseases, and to reverse cool down the bodies in summer - you know, increase blood circulation only to cool off later. If you are tempted to try some of this, or simply put your family through some fire n their mouths with some spicy dishes, how about ordering some ghost chilli online? Yes, you can do that.

I wonder if I will survive it.

Okay, no. No, is the answer.

Let's try some anyway?