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How did you become a chillihead?

I was Born in Ray Arizona, which at that time was a copper mining town, as the mine exspanded it buried the town under tons of copper crud and other crap, my dad who was a gunner in the pacific was exposed to hot sauce to cover the taste of the food they had. He became a Blaster at the mine and was friendly with every one. He got turned on to the wild little peppers that the Mexican workers ate and he would take a long drive south with them  to a place where they grew, he always had a jar full of those little fire balls, us kids craved to try what our dad put on his food at first it was just some of the hot vinegar and as we got a little older the mean little fire balls.
later I was exposed to some of the hot peppers in the store at that time 60s,  I joined the navy when I got out of high school and was in the Brown water navy for a couple of years then was later on a refitted Destroyer during that time I was exposed to the local Thai sauces and foods, hot Filipeano and Vietnamese dishes that was often spiced with hot peppers and fiery sauces.  
After that I was pretty much hooked on hot peppers and grew several of the main line peppers mostly jalapenos and some of my favorite little fire balls that I collected in Southern New Mexico.
In my later years I started to trade pepper seeds with other people and made some good friends like my friend Chris here and several others which lead me to getting some Ghost peppers, now I try and grow as many different super and some of the newer Ultra hots that is being talked about.
I'm now recovering from Cancer, but I still have the taste for hot spicy foods even though my doctor frounds on me eating any super hots in large amounts, I don't know what he means about large amounts as you just can't eat a lot of super hots at any one time , at least not more than one at a time.  So I guess a piece here and there or a good shake of the sauce bottle won't kill me 
 
Started out growing red bells because they are too damned expensive to buy. Since I was at it thought I would add some poblanos and jalapenos. The next spring at a local farmers market I found a plant labeled "Caribbean Red" and thought that sounded pretty cool so I grabbed it. Never having heard of it before I hopped on the interweb and ended up here. Instantly my mind was blown away as to the variety of chilis out there as well as the vast knowledge on this site. Now after trades, purchases, sase's and the like I'm growing my own plants, making small batches of sauce and powder and am completely addicted to heat and flavor.
 
As a kid my parents raised my brother & I to be adventurous eaters. Dad would always take us to "exotic" restaurants - growing up in the SF Bay Area that was easy to do, as we have Chinatown Oakland, Chinatown San Francisco, a huge Vietnamese population in the East Bay, Thai, Korean, Ethiopian, etc, etc, etc. All of these cultures have some sort of spicy foods. 
 
Early on, at 6-7 years old it was my brother and I daring each other to eat the dark red Cayennes in Szechuan food. After that it wasn't so much a dare as an enjoyment of the burn and the flavors. Thai was (and remains) my favorite. So many great ways to get lit up, whether it's a lemongrass soup with loads of heat, or a hot curry, or a garlic & pepper eggplant dish. 
 
I can't remember an age when we didn't have Tapatio, Sriracha and some sort of Sambal chile paste in the refrigerator. I've been cooking since I was a young kid, and I would frequently use those as a staple in my marinades or scrambled into eggs to get the fire I loved. 
 
I HATED spicy food as a kid.  I mean, bbq chips were too hot for me, but I watched my dad slathering cheesesteaks with Franks Red Hot and eggs with Tabasco.  It wasn't until my early teens that I really gave it a try again.  Hot wings were just being discovered and the restaurant I worked at sold them.  I loved my mild wings right off, but one night I was given an order of hot by accident.  I ate them and thought I was going to die!  It took a little time, but I gradually worked my way up to and WAY past the hot wings.  I started trying more and new hot sauces including Dave's Insanity which really opened up the whole chilehead world to me.  A co-worker then let me try all the peppers he was growing including a bunch of different habs.  I used to slice them up and eat them at my desk.  He also invited me to my first "hotluck".  It was all downhill from there.  Now I can say that I have tried all the contenders for the hottest pepper in the world, have met all the biggest names in the industry, and have one of the coolest jobs you could ever have, reviewer for THP.
 
My family is all bo-hunk. We grew up eating spicy. '69 pop was flying in The Nam. We were living in Dundee, MI just to be close to grandma's house. I was in 6th grade. Ma would give me 2 bucks and send me to the butcher uptown. I'd get on my Schwinn bike which had a fat slick rear tire, banana seat, sissy bar and ape hangers and ride there and pick up a gallon of milk, a loaf of bread, a pound of ground beef and a pound of colbasse (yeah thats how they spelled it, the butcher was hungarian too) bring it all home with change left over. Sometimes the colbasse was mild, sometimes pretty hot. Didna' matter anyway, we ate it and loved it. Later when pop retired we moved to the Rio Grande Valley and the farm. I think I was in 10th grade the year we had several acres in jalapeno's growing. All my friends were Mexicans and I ate what they ate all the time. Just a block from the school was a little taco joint we'd all go to at lunch time. Lots of hot stuff. I remember also at the time you could go to Whataburger and right on the counter next to the register would be a wire rack with plastic baggies with pickled jalapeno's you could grab to go with your meal. Free of charge. I thought everyone ate like that. I still do. Not too long ago I went through the whole super hot 'thang. I got tired of not being able to leave the house the next day. These days I'm much more sensible. Only super hots once in a good while but I still eat the more moderate stuff like pequins, chiltepins, xalapa's, even thai's, as much as I want every day with no worries. Same with hot sauce, but I stay away from extracts and the blow your head off sheeit. I prefer flavor over heat.
 
My dad always grew chillies but nothing too extreme. Usually it was your basic cayenne or super chilli. I was young and he would always give me bites of stuff he ate. He always ate this nacho cheese and idk what he put in it but it was so hot it made me cry more than once. I also remember seeing his friends eat them and running for the sink for drinks. As i got older i liked to get my buddies but they wouldn't try it unless i did. So i started eating them to get an edge against the competition. Pfft.. Then it progressively got to where i ate it on everything and wanted it hotter.. A little digging and i found this place... My poor dad! Muahahaha
 
I've always liked hot peppers.
Then i liked the more they were near inedibility cause of heat.
Then this year i decided to be on diet cause i was too heavy. Considering i like a lot to eat... I decied to use hot peppers as a relief valve (less food, more heat!).
Then i though it would have been lame to love hot peppers without being a serious hot head! :D
 
wildseed57 said:
my doctor frounds on me eating any super hots in large amounts
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Quick OT: what does "frounds" mean (sry, not english native)? A quick google surf doesn't help! :P
 
Essegi   "Frounds" is my bad spelling when I'm medicated, should be "Frowns" meaning he does not like me eating really hot peppers even though he was born in Vietnam. The first surgery was for colon cancer after that they cut out a piece of my liver that had some small tumors in it. I take a twice daily dose of Morphine so my brain doesn't work very well for me.
 
I went to school in the UP of Michigan. I was introduced there to pickled eggs (hard-boiled eggs put in brine with jalapeno peppers for a few weeks). Just about every bar up there has pickled eggs. I was hooked on the eggs and on the heat. I started making them myself and a few years back started making them with habaneros that I grew fresh in my garden. Back then that was the only place I could get them. The last couple of years I kept hearing about these ghost peppers so I thougt I'd start growing them. This last year I started seeing all of the super hot varieties out there, found this site, and the rest, as they say, is history.
 
wildseed57 said:
Essegi   "Frounds" is my bad spelling when I'm medicated, should be "Frowns" meaning he does not like me eating really hot peppers even though he was born in Vietnam. The first surgery was for colon cancer after that they cut out a piece of my liver that had some small tumors in it. I take a twice daily dose of Morphine so my brain doesn't work very well for me.
Click to expand...
Thanks for explanation. Stay strong!
 
I'm Pretty new to the chili head  stuff but a watched A LOT of you tube pepper reviews then i knew i just had to stop by the store and get the hottest thing they had. When I asked the lady if they had anything hotter than Habaneros her eyes lit up and asked if i was joking. And now I've got my first batch of super hots on the way! XD
 
I grew my first garden in 1992 - squash, tomatoes, and jalapeño - in 1993 in Vicksburg, Ms. I really got into it. But, before that, I lived and went to LSU in Baton Rouge and fell in love with red beans, gumbo, jambalaya - you get the picture. I fell in love with cooking.

Fast forward - I found some Caribbean reds at Target no less and grew those in 1996 when I moved to Panama City. I couldn't believe it! I started cooking with these and experimenting - it was my Great Leap Forward.

Then, I starting eating with some lunch buddies at a Thai restaurant EVERYDAY. For 5 dollars, it was spring rolls, soup, and the "special". 5 star for me and I became good friends with the Thai family. They really helped me understand Thai cooking basics and it was a natural progression, for me at least, to start researching chiles around the world and hot, spicy food.

I love the "buzz" I get from chiles.

Its not a hobby to me - its actually a way of life.

Bob
 
Growing up in an Italian home there was always plenty of red pepper around, but I was never a huge fan of hot sauces. My dad poured Tabasco on everything, and I think that is why today I don’t like any heavy vinegar infused sauces.
 
When I was about 15 years old my girlfriend’s family took me to a Thai restaurant.  Her parents ordered for me. All I know as I sat there trying to look very cool, a very hot sensation over took me. Her dad looked at me like “got ya!” I jumped up and literally ran to the bathroom almost knocking a waitress over. I rinsed my mouth out over and over again, while I could hear the laughing on the other side of the wall. By the time I made it back to the table they already had a small bowl of ice cream waiting for me. All I remember was her dad saying “you’re not supposed to eat those peppers, they're just for flavor.” And me saying “then why in the heck do they leave them in the food!”
 
So from that point on I was determined never to find myself in that situation again, but it really was not until I met my wife that I really stepped up my game. She has always loved the heat, the hotter the better. Of course she pours the Tabasco on everything just like my dad did, so I wanted to come up with a hot sauce that we could both enjoy together.  I started playing with salsas and sauces.  Although I’m still working on perfecting my sauces, I think I have created a pretty good salsa that is now a staple in our fridge. It has no less than 12 Habs (Fataliis when in season) and 15 other hot peppers.  It’s gone every two weeks without fail.
 
Oh and the Thai Food, I now love to pull those little peppers straight out of my food and chew them whole, all the while thinking about that first Thai experience. 
 
It was all very innocent at first. I was young, looking for excitement, susceptible to peer influence, and "experimenting" with various hot foods...you know commercial hot sauces and BBQ rubs. I ended up dabbling in jalapenos and habaneros (the "gateway" peppers) and ended up fully hooked on anything pepper-related that I could get my hands on. Sometimes I get on the wagon, briefly, for a day or two, then I fall back off the wagon and go full-on for my pepper stash that I have discretely tucked away in the bottom of the freezer.
 
My experience was when I was 9, my mom ordered this plate of wings from a local pub bar, and grill. She called them suicide wings, well anyway she brought them home because they were to hot to eat, and she had a few friends over, everyone was drinking beer, having a good time, well I was not drinking beer, I was sleeping. but no one in the house could eat them because they were too spicy, so she put them in the fridge. I woke up in the morning looking in the fridge for something to snack on and come across this styrofoam box filled with wings. (Oh the good ol days when styrofoam was popular to use on all packaging), so I took them heated them up and ate them all. Lol, it was about the heat of a habanero, which is very hot for someone who has never had any spicy type of food. they were hot, and something about them gave me this rush. I couldnt stop they were addictive. also when i was little and when I used bad words my mom used to put louisiana hot sauce in my mouth to teach me a lesson, until I looked at her and said more please, then I got the nasty taste of dish soap.
 
Well, here goes.
 
My Momma tried to raise me right, but by the time I was 19, I had become wild and headstrong. She taught me salt and pepper were all the spices God intended, 'cept maybe a little sage for the sausage and turkey dressing. Then of course I hung out with the "wrong kinda people" as she would say. One day the "wrong kinda people" had a in-law from Louisiana visitin'. They said he was a Cajun, which I figured out was just some other kind of hillbilly that I'd never heard of. He had brought some fresh caught shrimp with him and he made a big pot of stew: corn on the cob, little red taters, onions, lemons, green peppers I think, some kinda of long skinny red pepper, maybe even garlic (another no-no of course) and the shrimp -with the head still on'em even. Fancy that. Well, I was afraid, but I was hungry. Probably on account of the munchies. So I tried some and  saw It was good to eat. And hot at the same time. It was like the eyes in my mouth had been opened. Wasn't long before I was seeking out hot food on my own. When a Chinese restaurant finally came to town, they became my supplier. Then a Cajun restaurant came that kept a bottle Trappey's Tabascos right on every table. Before I knew it I was eating salsa, or even Texas Pete sauce on my scrambled eggs in the morning at home.
 
So that's how I came to be here.
 
I became a chilli head not because I love peppers, but because I hate tongues. They are evil and must be obliterated wherever they are found  :shocked:
 
Don't actually remember when I got into peppers, I do remember my first phaal tho, garnished with unidentified green chillies...needless to say, my anus did not thank me for the experience. No matter, I hate that Arsehole anyway  
 
I first ate a Jalapeno with instant ramen when I was 7. Saw my parents eating them and just had to try. Been addicted to the fire ever since! Now that I have a home and garden I have begun growing my own, and my quest for seeds and information brought me here.
 
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