I’m growing a Carolina Reaper pepper plant in my garden this year. I planted it in May of 2018, but it didn’t start flowering until October, and I was forced to dig it up and bring it inside the house before it was killed by a frost. There is not a good sunny place in my house, and the plant gradually lost all of its flowers and many of the leaves. When I replanted it outside this spring, I didn’t expect it to produce peppers, but it finally has. The Carolina reaper is the hottest pepper in the world, producing fruit with 2,200,000 Scoville units. This is 200 times hotter than a Jalapeno and 4 times hotter than an Habanero. Scoville units measure the concentration of capsaicinoid, the substance that makes peppers hot. The Carolina Reaper is an hybrid between the La Sofriero and Naga Viper peppers.
A Carolina Reaper pepper grown in my garden next to a matchbook for size comparison. They turn red when completely ripe.
While cutting into a Carolina Reaper pepper I could smell the capsaicinoid. I put a pepper measuring just a little more than an inch square into an half-gallon pot of pinto beans, and it made the whole batch astonishingly hot. I love hot foods, but this made it tough to eat, even for me. I later turned the leftovers into refried beans. I was afraid this would concentrate the capsaicinoid and make it even hotter, but instead the oils must have evaporated because it was a little more bearable. Nevertheless, my mouth burned for at least 10 minutes after consuming a bowl of beans, and I could feel the heat in my stomach for about 2 hours. It hurt even worse exiting my body the next day. The only culinary use I can think of for this pepper is as an ingredient for some kind of insanity hot sauce. I’m going to add salt and hot vinegar to the rest of them, and keep the hot sauce in a malt vinegar dropper.
Peppers (Capsicum chinense and/or C. frutescens) are native to Central America and Southern Mexico. There is an interesting disjunct population in southeastern Missouri. Indians probably cultivated them there, and they escaped into the wild. Taxonomists disagree over whether there are 1 or 2 species. Native Americans have used them for ~9000 years and probably began cultivating them a long time ago. The small pequin chili peppers still grow in the wild and birds propagate them. The capsaicinoid doesn’t stop birds from eating them and spreading the seeds in their dung. Bird digestion increases pepper germination by 370% because bird digestive juices work to prevent fungal growth, and ants (which might consume the seeds) can’t find them without rotting fruit around the seeds. The capsaicinoid does stop insect predation on the fruit.
I enjoy eating frijoles barrachos–a simple peasant dish. To make it, soak 1 pound of pinto beans in 1.5 quarts of water over night. Put the beans and water in a crock pot with 1 tablespoon of salt, 1 chopped onion, 2 tomatoes, 2 hot peppers (I recommend jalapenos, not Carolina Reaper), and 1 12 ounce bottle of dark beer. Cook on low for 8 hours.
Frijoles barrachos. I could eat beans everyday and never tire of them.
I like refried beans even better because the evaporation concentrates the flavor. Take the leftover beans and mash them with a potato masher. Dump them in hot bacon grease and fry them, stirring frequently, until they develop a nice crust on the bottom and much of the liquid has evaporated.
Frijoles barrachos after they’ve been well fried. Serve with cheese and/or bacon.
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