Guwahati, India - Spurred by a Guinness World Record nod to the local "ghost chili", a woman from India's north-east hopes to set a new record by eating a massive quantity of the world's hottest pepper.
Anandita Dutta Tamuly, a 26-year-old mother, is headed from Assam to London at the invitation of the record-noting institution to see how many Bhut Jolokia peppers, native to the state, she can eat at one sitting.
Tamuly, who hails from a remote village, believes she will have little trouble in beating the previous record, set by South African Anita Crafford, who ate eight jalapenos in a minute in 2002.
Tamuly is a lifelong devotee of the scorching Bhut Jolokia or ghost chili pepper, even though it is about 100 times as hot as a jalapeno.
"Such is the hotness of this chili that it can drive away the ghost and hence the name," said Tamuly, who says she got hooked as a small girl when her mother smeared chili paste on her tongue to cure an infection.
"I have already created history on Indian television by munching 60 of the chilies in two minutes. I am more than confident of creating a record once I reach London."
She is currently awaiting a British visa to make the trip, which the government of Assam is helping to finance.
The pepper, brought to Guinness's attention by a horticulture professor at New Mexico State University, clocks slightly more than one million Scoville units, almost twice as hot as the previous reigning champ, the Red Savina habanero at about 580 000 units.
The Scoville scale, developed by a pharmacist in 1912, is a measure of the ratio of water required to neutralise the pungency of a chili pepper.
An average jalapeno, used widely in salsa, measures only about 10 000 heat units.
The university announced this February that Guinness had recognised the pepper's claim to being the world's hottest.
"The Guinness Book of Records confirmed that New Mexico State University Regent's Professor Paul Bosland had indeed discovered the world's hottest chili pepper, Bhut Jolokia," said a statement posted on the school's website.
The certificate said the finding had been first confirmed in September.
As news of the record trickled down in Assam, where the hybrid variety occurs naturally, canny vegetable sellers raised their prices.
"We never thought Bhut Jolokia was so hot until news came in that this is the world's hottest chili. Now we have hiked the price by 50 rupees a kilogram with people buying it like hot cakes," said Nalini Ram Thakuria, a vegetable vendor in Assam's main city of Guwahati.
A kilogram of the pepper now sells for about 250 rupees.
But Tamuly said that she had been a fan of the chilies all her life, record or no record.
"I have been eating Bhut Jolokia since my childhood and never realised the hotness in my mouth," she said by telephone from Titabor, the village 325km east of Guwahati, where she lives.
The ghost chili grows mostly on hilly terrain and is considered a staple of every meal in the north-east.
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Anandita Dutta Tamuly, a 26-year-old mother, is headed from Assam to London at the invitation of the record-noting institution to see how many Bhut Jolokia peppers, native to the state, she can eat at one sitting.
Tamuly, who hails from a remote village, believes she will have little trouble in beating the previous record, set by South African Anita Crafford, who ate eight jalapenos in a minute in 2002.
Tamuly is a lifelong devotee of the scorching Bhut Jolokia or ghost chili pepper, even though it is about 100 times as hot as a jalapeno.
"Such is the hotness of this chili that it can drive away the ghost and hence the name," said Tamuly, who says she got hooked as a small girl when her mother smeared chili paste on her tongue to cure an infection.
"I have already created history on Indian television by munching 60 of the chilies in two minutes. I am more than confident of creating a record once I reach London."
She is currently awaiting a British visa to make the trip, which the government of Assam is helping to finance.
The pepper, brought to Guinness's attention by a horticulture professor at New Mexico State University, clocks slightly more than one million Scoville units, almost twice as hot as the previous reigning champ, the Red Savina habanero at about 580 000 units.
The Scoville scale, developed by a pharmacist in 1912, is a measure of the ratio of water required to neutralise the pungency of a chili pepper.
An average jalapeno, used widely in salsa, measures only about 10 000 heat units.
The university announced this February that Guinness had recognised the pepper's claim to being the world's hottest.
"The Guinness Book of Records confirmed that New Mexico State University Regent's Professor Paul Bosland had indeed discovered the world's hottest chili pepper, Bhut Jolokia," said a statement posted on the school's website.
The certificate said the finding had been first confirmed in September.
As news of the record trickled down in Assam, where the hybrid variety occurs naturally, canny vegetable sellers raised their prices.
"We never thought Bhut Jolokia was so hot until news came in that this is the world's hottest chili. Now we have hiked the price by 50 rupees a kilogram with people buying it like hot cakes," said Nalini Ram Thakuria, a vegetable vendor in Assam's main city of Guwahati.
A kilogram of the pepper now sells for about 250 rupees.
But Tamuly said that she had been a fan of the chilies all her life, record or no record.
"I have been eating Bhut Jolokia since my childhood and never realised the hotness in my mouth," she said by telephone from Titabor, the village 325km east of Guwahati, where she lives.
The ghost chili grows mostly on hilly terrain and is considered a staple of every meal in the north-east.
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