While he certainly didn't invent Cajun and creole cooking, few chefs have done as much to popularize those cuisines as Emeril Lagasse. Despite being born in Massachusetts, he is as much associated with the flavors of New Orleans as Mardi Gras and the French Quarter. No "hint of this" or a "touch of that", the spices used there are decidedly in-your-face. Nothing exemplifies that more than his catch phrase as he cooks, where throws a little more spice into the dish while putting up his arms and yelling "Bam!"
When asked what was in that "Bam!" he described a secret blend called "Essence of Emeril." Not really a secret, as you can buy it by the jar at your local grocery store, it is a combination of salt, paprika, spices, garlic, onion and black pepper. "Being me, I always kicked it up a notch, which means I would always elevate the spice level or the complexity of a particular dish. So, it was always like we're going to kick this up a little bit."
It's also true that one man's heat is another man's merely smoldering. To really raise the intensity many turn to other preparations such as Tabasco or Frank's. Indeed, an entire subcategory of condiments exist under the heading of pepper-based hot sauces. There you can find an almost endless variety from mild to downright incendiary. But while the low end might be a matter of taste, as you rise up the scale it becomes an objective measure of intensity. Back in 1912, pharmacologist William Scoville developed a system used to this day, wherein he dissolved a pepper in alcohol, then diluted it with sugar water. The result was given to five trained tasters in decreasing concentration, until at least three could no longer detect any heat. How many times it had to be diluted times 100 translated into the eponymous Scoville unit.
So you start with bell and banana peppers that have no heat, and clock in at zero Scoville Heat Units or SHU. At the other end of the scale is the pure form of capsaicin, the active chemical in peppers that causes the sensation of heat in mammals (birds don't feel it). It registers at 16 million SHU. Along the way you have jalapenos which rate between 2500 and 8000 SHU, and serranos at 10,000 SHU. Higher up the scale are Bird's Eye Chilis, which are found in Thai and Indonesian cuisine and run to 100,000 SHU, and Habaneros in Mexican and West Indian food at 150,000 SHU. Beyond that it's less about adding flavor or bite, and more about adding pain.
Aficionados (also know as masochists) have tried for years to see just how hot they can go. Up until this month that meant the Carolina Reaper pepper. Developed by Ed Currie of South Carolina in 2013, the Reaper held the world's record for the hottest pepper at 1.64 million SHU. By comparison, the pepper spray the cops use is 1.6 million units and bear spray is 2.2 million units. Try putting that in your chili.
But Currie didn't stop there. He kicked drug and alcohol addiction, and considers the kick he gets from the heat a natural high. And so for the past decade he has been cross breeding the Reaper with others, trying to perfect a pepper that delivered "immediate, brutal heat." And this month he succeeded, releasing Pepper X, which has been rated the hottest pepper in the world by the Guinness Book of World Records, with an average rating of 2.69 million SHU.
What does that mean in in terms of taste? As one of only five people to actually eat an entire Pepper X, Currie said "I was feeling the heat for three-and-a-half hours. Then the cramps came. Those cramps are horrible. I was laid out flat on a marble wall for approximately an hour in the rain, groaning in pain." Natural high indeed.
While Pepper X is not yet available commercially, Currie has other seeds and sauces on sale through his store. There you can get Angry Irishman Franken Sauce or Smokin' Ed's Chocolate Strawberry Hot Sauce. Just be aware that all his products pack a punch. Put in Emeril terms, they take "Bam" up to nuclear explosion level. Which also helps to explain Currie's company name: PuckerButt Pepper Company.
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Marc Wollin of Bedford prefers Frank's Hot Sauce. His column appears regularly in The Record-Review, The Scarsdale Inquirer and online at http://www.glancingaskance.blogspot.com/, as well as via Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.
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