-
If you need help identifying a pepper, disease, or plant issue, please post in Identification.
that one pepper you ate that got you Hooked
- Thread starter Daedra
- Start date
I used to be happily ignorant about spicy food and thought tabasco was the shit of all spiciness. Then I discovered siracha and started to think what else was out there? About 5 years ago I got my hands on my first habanero and was completely schooled on what a spicy pepper was supposed to be. Germinated thoe seeds and have been growing them out ever since. Got my first ghost pepper about 3 years ago and did the same with the seeds. This year I discovered THP and pepperlover.com and have just germinated some brainstrains, morugas, reapers, fataliis, and other habaneros. I'm trying to make more room so I can get more strains going too.
Ever since I knew about spicy food, I have liked it. Problem was, never could find any really spicy food growing up, the kind that leaves you sweating. Sure, I could douse something in tabasco, but that only got it so hot, and then the flavor was overwhelmed. My cousin's father introduced me to Dave's Insanity sauce, and I loved it at first, but then I started to not like the flavor. I knew that it was an extract sauce, so I thought for a while that an extract was the only way to get really hot food. A few years ago, heard about the ghost pepper, never even thought about growing it. Then a coworker mentioned that they were thinking about growing the Trinidad scorpion Butch T after it was announced the hottest. All of these things culminated and then I thought "Peppers are pretty easy to grow, I am gonna try it!" I was already looking up recipes on how to use the Scorpion. Came across this site. Kept coming across this site for months. Finally joined after I killed off my first round of seeds. Figured out some things. Ordered an SFRB of Brainstrains to try out a superhot. Brought one in to work and split it with the aforementioned coworker. Had a good time through all of the pain. Cut to three growing seasons later and I am worrying about how little freezer space I have due to the peppers.
So, BrainStrain. Still remember the first one.
So, BrainStrain. Still remember the first one.
No not very common at all. Everybody talked about habaneros for years and how they were insanely hot. Many people here considered the Hawaiian chili pepper to be crazy hot but I wasn't satisfied. I mentioned to everybody I knew and even complete strangers that I was on the hunt for habaneros (mail order never crossed my mind). It took awhile to actually get my hands on one but I never looked back since. Habs are a bit more common now, to the point that I can sometimes find them in the grocery store for $10 a pound and ghosts are a lot easier to find too. Actually before I found THP I thought Habs and ghosts were in a very small category but now I realize they are actually quite a bit overrated compared to so many other varieties out there.Daedra said:
When I was about 12 my parent bought a Datl Do-It hot sauce gift package with about 5 sauces. My dad would make grilled bbq chicken and once I combined those fall-off-the-bone drumsticks with the datil sauce it was over.... I couldnt get enough of the awesome flavor, and it was fun to be "the guy" who could handle more and more spiciness.
I remember when I was 5 and ate my first pepper off my grandmothers pepper plant in the back yard. They just called it just plain chili peppers back then. But it was a C. frutescens; also identified as C. annuum var. I ate a little green one and Oh Boy! I was on FIRE. Rubbing my eyeballs seemed liked the next best option to me at the time since my mouth was burning. I sometimes still get flashbacks of that moment. But, for some reason I kept going back to the bush and other ones she had over the years for more minus the eyeball rubbing. Been hook since and my heat level taste has gone up over the years.
Jalapenos were always in my life. Salsa and guacamole are not their namesake without them, but I never considered them spicy. . . My first love came from the humble orange grocery store habanero. Used two in a coconut fish stew with lemongrass and used the leftovers for a hot sauce. Never looked back.
My wife for years has made a salsa that only had 2 roasted jalapeno's per quart of salsa. It was a very basic salsa that everyone enjoyed that consisted of canned whole tomato's,garlic, cilantro, onion, lime and jalapenos. It had a shelf like of only a few days. Then this last year I was at my brothers house who is a Dave Insanity Hot Sauce freak and has various different kinds and I tried some after a few beers and felt really macho. I told him it wasn't really as hot as I had expected for a ghost pepper sauce. That was the turning point into the hot sauce world. From there it became how could I make my own sauce. So it began with habahero's combined with serrano's and jalapeno's as this was all I had access to at the time. Then I found THP and discovered the wonderful world of the Hot Pepper Community with all these peppers that I never knew existed. So for me the first super hot that I liked was the Red Savina. If I had to pick my all around favorite pepper right now I would go with the Scotch Bonnets and Caribbean peppers. For a combination of heat and flavor these stand out to me.
Jalapeño.. It wasn't common here a few years back. I got hooked on jalapeño cheese spread from US MREs.. allthough you 'murricans kept bitching about the MREs, it was a very welcome treat compared to our EPa 24h rations..
After that I starting buying jalapeño stuff at the US PX and back home I started growing jalapeños.. It went down Hill from there.. every spare inch in my home is now occupied with seedlings, season after season.
After that I starting buying jalapeño stuff at the US PX and back home I started growing jalapeños.. It went down Hill from there.. every spare inch in my home is now occupied with seedlings, season after season.
When I was about 12 my parent bought a Datl Do-It hot sauce gift package with about 5 sauces. My dad would make grilled bbq chicken and once I combined those fall-off-the-bone drumsticks with the datil sauce it was over.... I couldnt get enough of the awesome flavor, and it was fun to be "the guy" who could handle more and more spiciness.
I remember datl do it!
I remember datl do it!
Born and raised Texas bohunk.
I came out of the womb eatin' spicy.
Don't recollect what came first.
Hot Hungarian paprika's most likely but closely followed by jalapeno's and pequin's/tepin's.
I remember on the farm early high school having several acre's in jalapeno's and
eating them off the vine and pops bringing home fresh chiltepin's that were hot as hell.
Good times.
I came out of the womb eatin' spicy.
Don't recollect what came first.
Hot Hungarian paprika's most likely but closely followed by jalapeno's and pequin's/tepin's.
I remember on the farm early high school having several acre's in jalapeno's and
eating them off the vine and pops bringing home fresh chiltepin's that were hot as hell.
Good times.
MarcV
Extreme Member
There's not "that one pepper you ate that got you Hooked" in my case, it's just a little more complicated. In fact I've been a citrus enthousiast since I was a kid, and in the recent years where I got my own house and a little more room for growing plants, I started collecting and growing many different kinds of citrus. Unfortunately the climate I live in is not very citrus friendly. Also, growing citrus is a very slow process compared to growing chillis. Fruits can hang on the tree for over a year before they are mature, and then they usually aren't even worth eating! 
At some day I was invited for dinner at my sisters house. My brother-in-law who is a good cook made a great stew that was reasonably hot to me, not being used to hot food. That somehow sparked my interest in chillis. At that time I was not at all aware of what existed in the world of chillis, and I thought that cayenne was just another kind of black pepper. But I got curious and started googling for chillis and more specifically the worlds hottest chilli. That happened to be the bhut jolokia at that time. I saw movies on youtube about people eating bhuts and started thinking of growing such a plant myself. That got me looking for chilli seeds. I was surprised to find such a diversity of chilli species!
Today my interest in citrus is slowly but steadily being replaced by my interest in chilli. The diversity of chilli varieties is probably as large as that of citrus varieties. But it's just so much easier to grow chillis. Planting seed and obtaining fruit of that plant within the same year is just unthinkable with citrus. And if the chilli plant is a failure you just start over again!
I still have to grow my first bhut jolokia though, although I'm not sure if I will ever be able to handle the heat. But I think I might give it a try this year!
At some day I was invited for dinner at my sisters house. My brother-in-law who is a good cook made a great stew that was reasonably hot to me, not being used to hot food. That somehow sparked my interest in chillis. At that time I was not at all aware of what existed in the world of chillis, and I thought that cayenne was just another kind of black pepper. But I got curious and started googling for chillis and more specifically the worlds hottest chilli. That happened to be the bhut jolokia at that time. I saw movies on youtube about people eating bhuts and started thinking of growing such a plant myself. That got me looking for chilli seeds. I was surprised to find such a diversity of chilli species!
Today my interest in citrus is slowly but steadily being replaced by my interest in chilli. The diversity of chilli varieties is probably as large as that of citrus varieties. But it's just so much easier to grow chillis. Planting seed and obtaining fruit of that plant within the same year is just unthinkable with citrus. And if the chilli plant is a failure you just start over again!
I still have to grow my first bhut jolokia though, although I'm not sure if I will ever be able to handle the heat. But I think I might give it a try this year!
used to pick up tomato plants at lowes for the garden, noticed some peppers so i grabbed a few.
really loved how they dealt with oklahoma summer heat (better than tomatoes) and produced bright colored beautiful fruit(red jals, orange habs)
did a search online and found pepper joe (if only i found judy first <,<) and bought a few cool looking varieties, the rest is history.
really loved how they dealt with oklahoma summer heat (better than tomatoes) and produced bright colored beautiful fruit(red jals, orange habs)
did a search online and found pepper joe (if only i found judy first <,<) and bought a few cool looking varieties, the rest is history.