Death By Hot Pepper

I am not a food critic or a reviewer, so forgive me if this sounds a bit over the top; true accounts usually do.

Some years back, I was tinkering around making a hot sauce or a salsa for my consumption and gastronomic distress. A buddy of mine who served in Vietnam suggested I use one of the peppers he smuggled back to the States in 1970 and has, for decades, grown them in his backyard garden. Sure thing, I would love to use them. He warned me they are the hottest peppers on earth, and a grown man would die within twenty minutes if he ate a whole pepper. He saw a chicken eat one, and the poor bird exploded into a mass of feathers and guts within a few minutes.

A few days ago, he brought me one small pepper and said it was all I would need. It was triple-wrapped in foil, double-bagged in heavy-duty Ziploc bags, and transported in a soft-walled Yeti cooler.

“Why all the elaborate precautions?” I asked.

” He looked a bit nervous as he handed me the bag and said, ” These babies are so damn hot that even breathing or smelling them will singe your lungs, destroy your sense of smell, and might make you blind.” Now I’m scared.

Written on the baggie is the name of the pepper, “Vietnamese Death Pepper.” The name alone is enough to scare the liver out of me, but being a man and not wanting to disappoint my buddy and look like a pansy-ass, I proceeded on.

I gingerly removed the foil-wrapped pepper from the baggies, took it to the back patio, positioned myself upwind, and unwrapped the foil cacoon. There it lay, a small, harmless-looking red pepper about the size of my pinky toe. It was quite beautiful in its own way. My buddy said to wear gloves when handling the little demon and to use only a tiny sliver in your recipe, or you might die in agony. I put on leather gloves, a scuba mask, and a triple filter breathing device, shaved a tiny sliver into a Tupperware container, then wrapped the pepper up and stored it in the bottom drawer of my fridge. I figure to use this in my salsa or hot sauce that’s cooking on the range.

Even with Jalapenos, hot cajun onions, and ghost peppers, my hot pepper sauce is too mild, so I put the sliver into the boiling mix, letting the brew steep for a few hours, and I shuffled off to watch cooking videos.

I bottled the mix into a clean Jameson Irish Whiskey bottle and corked it shut. Then completed my salsa and added one drop of the hot sauce to the mix. My wife, MoMo, stood on our patio while I Facetimed her the procedure. It’s now or never. I dipped a sacrificed corn chip into the salsa, raised it to my quivering lips, and popped it into my mouth. Dang, now that’s some good stuff. About two minutes later, my guts churned, my belly swelled like a dead whale, I had trouble breathing, and my vision blurred; then my legs gave out, and I went down for the count. MoMo rushed in and began resuscitation; she was sure I was a goner. I saw visions and was going to the light, but the ghost of Chef Anthony Bourdain told me to go back and “not use so much of that little pepper,” he also called me a moron as he floated back to his personal cloud. I spent the next three days in the bathroom or confined to my bed, but I made a full recovery and never felt better. My gut is cleaned out, my vision is better, I can smell a fly’s fart, and my skin rash has healed, and my teeth are gleaming white. This stuff might be a miracle elixir. I cooked a new brew and used a minuscule dot of the killer pepper. The new batch turned out perfect; just enough heat and flavor, but none of the life-threatening side effects.

I’m working on a label, and the name of my new hot pepper sauce is “Davey Crockett’s Ass Cannon.” A nod to my buddies over at “The Sons of The Alamo” lodge, of which I am a member. It’s guaranteed to blow out your colon, incinerate those pesky hemorrhoids, make the lame walk, the mute talk, turn your hair from gray to its natural color, and remove wrinkles. Pictured above is what’s left of my second batch of salsa using my hot pepper sauce.