Posted on 11/10/2020 11:33:23 PM PST by nickcarraway
I didn’t see it coming, that mild feeling of electric currents buzzing on my tongue as if I’d licked a battery.
Seated on a busy pavement in front of a lazy Susan weighed down with sizzling hotpot, diced rabbit and fish soup, I was digging into a spicy meal on the humid first night of a visit to Chengdu, the capital of China’s south-western Sichuan province and the cradle of the region’s famously fiery cuisine.
The plates resembled volcanic islands, each dish’s contents swimming in chilli oil hidden beneath a red-hot mountain of peppers and garlic. Tongue ablaze and face flushed, I felt a prickliness starting to numb my taste buds. The waiter chuckled at my glistening forehead and handed me a handkerchief; it was clear who at the table was the foreigner not yet acclimated to local flavours.
Unsettling at first, that tingly feeling of electricity offered a pleasant reprieve from the heat. This curious effect was thanks to one of the most integral ingredients in this province’s distinctive cuisine: the tiny-but-mighty Sichuan peppercorn, a spice indigenous to China.
The seasoning’s English label is a misnomer, as the “peppercorns” are actually husks of dried berries from a type of prickly ash shrub. When you eat chillies, capsaicin induces a burning sensation known in Chinese as là. Sichuan peppercorns produce a phenomenon called paraesthesia, in which the lips and tongue feel as though they are vibrating and go vaguely numb – known as má. Together, the tandem combination of burning and numbing from these two ingredients is known in Chinese as málà, a hallmark of Sichuan cuisine that facilitates sweating – and thus creates a cooling effect that makes the sweltering climate more tolerable.
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.com ...
Interesting. Looked to see how to pronounce it and found this excellent short video using mala:
Fuchsia Dunlop & Sichuan Flavors: Málà (Numbing & Spicy) | Boiled Beef in Fiery Sauce | Serious Eats
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=adBrsIP9n8g
Are those naga jolokia? I haven’t grown them in a few years, they may not be the hottest anymore but they were so flavorful.
These are called Death Spirals because of the ridges that circle the pepper from top to bottom. They were first bred in England and are over 1 million SHU like the Naga. Once you get up to that level what's hottest is not really relevant anymore. They're all hot and how hot depends on the conditions you grow them in. Growing superhots is one of my hobbies and I am in the equivalent of hardiness zone 10B, similar to central Florida, so I can play with them almost year round. We have 2 terraces and I claim the lower one for my plants
You didn't actually read the article, did you?
Wow !!! Those are beautiful! !!!
I grew 1 plant in a garden I had in Arkansas and that plant was some kinda incredible producer. I couldn’t give them away in AR so I started sending boxes of them to Friends in Texas. That one plant probably produced about 8 pounds and it was only about 2.5’ tall x 2’ around.
You can make good money selling peppers thanks to USPS flat rate boxes, about $25 per box depending on the peppers you want to sell. There is a brisk trade in flat rate boxes on the different Facebook pepper groups. I live in Spain so the cost of shipping makes it too expensive.
REAPERS! the only way to go! We grow them too. If my wife tastes it and says it is too HOT do NOT sample it.
We dry them and use the blender to powder them. I have several containers stockpiled with the powder.
when SHTF I have a system figured out to place my old 2 gallon paint pot near the front gate, fill it with powder and run a hose up the hill to the shop. If I detect movement at the front gate through my FLIR scope all I have to do is turn on the air. nozzle placed high to spread the area with powder.
I have no desire to shoot anyone but that would make them wish they were dead.
I make a powder out of Reapers, Primo Pot 7’s and Komodo Dragons (another English Superhot) that I call Drop Dead Red. I make a variety of different flakes, powders, hot sauces, pickles and cowboy candy from mild to mind blowing.
Did you ever go to my SHTF knowledge base? I used to open it to all FReepers but FR isn’t what it used to be so I closed it and now only let people who I know are active preppers have access. For all I know you could have been there for ages but I also deleted the ping list. I still update it every day tho.
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