Complex Numbers

Not Giving Up the Ghost

I really like ghost pepper.

A Guy Ate A Pepper So Hot That It Ripped A Hole in His Throat  

I am, however, not a complete idiot. Usually.

The ghost pepper, also known as bhut jolokia, is one of the hottest chilies in existence. It scores more than one million on the Scoville heat scale, which should tell you... well, not much of anything because spiciness can’t actually be measured using numerical units. So just picture the spiciest chili you can imagine, and we’ll say this is way hotter.

There are supposedly hotter chili peppers, such as the Carolina Reaper. When I tell people I like ghost pepper, they inevitably bring that up, so I'm getting that out of the way.

Look. It's not the "heat" that makes me enjoy ghost peppers. I'm not chasing some bragging rights or trying to prove that I have balls. Even if I was ever tempted to play the macho "who can eat the hottest pepper" game or whatever, I'm way too old for that now. It's just that, in small quantities, ghost pepper adds a nice tingly touch to a lot of different foods. And drinks. Hell, I've even had a ghost pepper IPA. I don't normally like IPAs, but this one was good. Because of the pepper. It was the product of a brewery / barbecue restaurant in Tonopah, Nevada (I don't know if it's still there), and one thing ghost pepper is excellent with is barbecue.

A little bit of it is like kittens purring in your mouth.

Too much, and the claws and teeth come out.

Anyway, the point is, I do like spicy food, but not enough to actually eat a ghost pepper like a complete and utter moron.

All of which brings us to our story about a ghost pepper challenge at a California restaurant in 2016.

"Challenge" = "Dick measuring contest."

Our 47-year-old hero, whom the Journal of Emergency Medicine does not identify by name when documenting this incident, came to the restaurant and ordered their ghost pepper burger.

So, just a little bit younger than I was at the time. Come to think of it, I'm pretty sure 2016 was the year I had the ghost pepper IPA in Nevada. Not sure about that, though; these things tend to blend together.

This was not a normal menu dish but part of a contest, as the restaurant believed that most customers would not be able to stomach bhut jolokia pureed over a hamburger patty. However, our hero did down the burger.

It's also good on burgers. Again... in small quantities. What you have to do is use a ghost pepper sauce that dilutes it enough so that you can spread it very thinly on the patty, thus capturing the taste without setting your face on fire.

His mouth burned afterward, and he chugged six glasses of water, which was expected.

Now, one doesn't become a spicy food eater without, occasionally, overdoing it. It's been a while, but there's one thing I remember: water isn't going to help.  

He then threw up, which was again something the restaurant likely anticipated.

Hot chilis are hot because of an alkaline compound in them. Stomachs are stomachs because there's an acid in them. When acid meets alkaline, they neutralize... sometimes explosively (science fair volcano, e.g.). Plus, enough pain will make you ralph.

But after that, he felt chest pains so severe that he needed to go to the emergency room.

This is not a normal reaction to eating hot peppers.

At times, you may have felt like you’ve thrown up so hard that you shredded your throat. But once doctors examined this guy, they discovered that he actually had torn a hole right through his esophagus — a rip about one-inch long.

And I won't be pasting the other gory details here.

We’re not calling a slashed gullet the certain result of eating spicy food, but we think the message here is clear: When you inevitably attempt a ghost pepper challenge yourself, be sure to slurp a cool milkshake between every bite.

That's not a bad plan. Beer, incidentally, as wonderful as it is, doesn't do much to mitigate capsaicin overdoses. But you know what a better plan is? Don't fucking do stupid triple-dog-dare hot pepper challenges.