Meditations on the Pepper: the World's Hottest Burger

[RetroRomper]

The importance of chiles cannot be be underestimated, especially in a diet:

1) They add an appreciatable amount of flavor, zest, HEAT, to an otherwise dull meal.

2) They are healthy for you: research has linked to the consumption of green chiles to increased blood flow and thus heart and general health.

3) If taken in moderation, they are a hobby that can be integrated into a diet.

With this in mind, I've been adding bell peppers (with seeds, I understand they are at the low end of mild) and green chiles in my meals - vegetables and rice have this new found quality and flavor that was lacking from my normally ash fried onions and sweet potato.

As well as being healthy and a great addition to otherwise bland food (care to argue if brown rice actually has any flavor?), building up my tolerance for heat is becoming quiet a journey, as I've recently moved to mild thai peppers of one kind or another and from there... Well... The sky is the limit.

In trying to find "off the cuff" evidence of the health benefits of chiles, I discovered a Yahoo! Answer reply to this exact question, where the woman responding said...

"i did consume the hottest burger ever - which i had to sign a disclaimer for it. Yes i know - i never signed anything in my entire life for something i wanted to eat.
Being an indian who eats hot spicy food i though, nah it cant be that hot. However it was soooooooooooooooo hot i only could have 1 bite. and didnt want anymore as i didnt want to ruin my health and know what is good and bad for my body."

Fine! What is the hottest burger in the world though?

Is it the "Worlds Hottest Burger" aka the MegaDeath Burger at a joint in Wellington Point in Queen's Land?

http://www.supersizedmeals.com/food/art ... _the_World



But eh... All they do is top a normal burger with MegaDeath Sauce which is no mean feat to consume, however it isn't beyond the average hotsauceaphile.

The burger the woman in the post was commenting on, was most likely the...

FOUR HORSEMEN BURGER

The 4-Horsemen is topped with grilled jalapenos, Serrano peppers, ghost peppers, jalapeno jack cheese and habanero sauce.

PICTURED Big Chunk
"Topped with Velveeta, onion rings and bacon"

The burger was featured on an episode of "Man vs. Food" as the "hottest burger in the world," or some such (but if you have to use gloves to it it, it must be EXTREME (especially since you have to sign a disclaimer to eat it:)



(Source: http://silvercreek78250.blogspot.com/20 ... rgers.html)

With that deductive search, quest, mission out of the way, there is one more burger that caught my eye because a friend of a friend had one of these proudly displayed on her refrigerator -


PICTURED: Random internet goons hand


PICTURED: Random search result on flickr for "Habanero Burger."

Sadly however, even ancetedotal evidence for this is slim, as the unofficial fan page states...

"Sadly, Jack Curry's Prince of Wales Pub has closed after 32 years."

But the website itself is beyond interesting. For example, they have a section called "SGI habanero hamburger histories," that recounts the trials and tribulations of SGI engineers eating the burger.

Choice quote!

Way Back When, what became the Power Challenge OS group was sitting around discussing hot food. One of the people had mentioned that when he was working at Oracle, they used to stop by a little dive called the Prince Of Wales Pub whenever they wanted to really burn out their taste buds. Everyone was about due for a group lunch, so they decided to go try their luck at the Prince Of Wales.

It, um, certainly lived up to its reputation. Presumably, there was much wailing and moaning for the requisite 24 hours after their trip but most everybody survived. To commemorate their shared suffering, the souvenir bumper stickers that you get when you order a habanero burger at the POW all found their ways onto office doors, etc.

Since the bumper stickers aren't exactly subtle, they drew a fair bit of curiosity from others. "Oh, it couldn't be *that* bad" was the typical response of the uninitiated. Eventually there were enough unbelievers to warrant another trip. After all, there is a certain mildly sadistic pleasure in watching a devout skeptic choke/sweat/tremble/moan through their first habanero burger. More suffering ensued, followed by more bumper stickers, and then more unbelievers. A cycle was beginning to appear.

http://www.habanero-hamburger.com/sgi-history.html

History to be had!

Any way... Those appear to be the world's "hottest burgers" but discounting one that is nothing but MegaDeath sauce smeared over its angus patty, the others appear to prey on the normally soft low to mild palletes of what are "Non-Hot Sauce Enthusiasts."

Regardless, hot sauce and peppers at large, have a proud tradition that will continue into the Next Millennium and as for me personally, I'm not nearly done in killing taste buds and bringing my tolerance back to levels where I can enjoy the hottest sauces man has to offer.

Retro

[Tdarcos]

Doesn't matter what they say, they can't possibly be the hottest burger in the world unless they're using Bhut Jalokia (thanks, Pinback, for giving me the correct spelling) peppers. They come from India and have a Scoville rating (Scoville Heat Units or SHU) at or above 1,000,000*. Your typical jalapeño maxes out at 6,000 Scoville units. And don't bother waxing about habañero peppers, the best wimps out at a mere 580,000 and most don't even exceed 350,000.

Actually, from the Wikipedia article linked above, there are four peppers that come in above 855,000 on the Scoville scale: Naga Viper pepper, Infinity Chilli, Bhut Jolokia chili pepper, Trinidad Scorpion Butch T pepper. At that level, trying to tell them apart by personal observation is a distinction without a difference.

I read the Wikipedia article and cross-links, and apparently the Trinidad Scorpion is actually Guiness Book of World Records recognized as the hottest, at 1.382 million SHU.

The reason they recommend eating these high-heat burgers with gloves is not because the product will sting your hands - you have no receptors in your hands or fingers sensitive to capcacin and thus you could handle pure capcacin (about 16 million Scoville units) with your bare hands and you wouldn't notice anything except a liquid - it's that the oil or seeds from the peppers will get on your fingers, and at some point, if you touch your mouth or eyes - which do have receptors for capcacin - when your hands have gotten the oils of these peppers on them...

* Source: Modern Marvels, The History Channel.

[RetroRomper]

Doesn't matter what they say, they can't possibly be the hottest burger in the world unless they're using Bhut Jalokia peppers.

Also known as Ghost Peppers, which are in the Four Horsemen Burger (and I've tried these peppers before and... I won't be trying them again).

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

I read the Wikipedia article and cross-links, and apparently the Trinidad Scorpion is actually Guiness Book of World Records recognized as the hottest, at 1.382 million SHU.

That doesn't sound fair. Pepper, pepper, pepper, scorpion? Let's keep this list to actual chile peppers, and not random insects that happen to have been Scoville Tested, everyone. Thanks.

-- moderator

[pinback]

Doesn't matter what they say, they can't possibly be the hottest burger in the world unless they're using Bhut Jalokia (thanks, Pinback, for giving me the correct spelling) peppers.

You're welcome for giving you the correct spelling. Two things, though:

1. You still butchered the spelling.
2. Your statement is incorrect. The hottest bhut jolokia in the world cowers under the fiery fist of pepper extract, which can be (and is) used to make food hotter than even the mighty J can achieve.

[RealityCheck]

Let's keep this list to actual chile peppers, and not random insects

Arachnid.

[Tdarcos]

I read the Wikipedia article and cross-links, and apparently the Trinidad Scorpion is actually Guiness Book of World Records recognized as the hottest, at 1.382 million SHU.

That doesn't sound fair. Pepper, pepper, pepper, scorpion? Let's keep this list to actual chile peppers, and not random insects that happen to have been Scoville Tested, everyone. Thanks.

I think you're being funny here, as I stated initially it's the Trinidad Scorpion Butch T pepper, so I shortened it to Trinidad Scorpion for brevity. Wikipedia says it's called that because the end looks like a scorpion's tail.