- Did you know there is an International Hot and Spicy Food Day?
Today, we celebrate International Hot and Spicy Food Day! Don’t feel too bad if you didn’t know about it — we weren’t aware of it being a thing, either.
Despite its relative obscurity, January 16 is the day to commemorate all spices and foods that set your mouth aflame, from garlic to chili. Of course, we at Oddee couldn’t think of a better way to pay homage to spicy foods than bringing you some odd factoids about them.
So, here you go: 8 strange, fun, and just plain fascinating facts about hot and spicy foods.
1. The World’s Hottest Pepper is Called Pepper X
Can you name the world’s spiciest chili pepper? If you said Carolina Reaper, we have bad news for you — your knowledge is out of date.
The ominously named Pepper X officially dethroned Carolina Reaper as the hottest pepper in October 2023. Pepper X registers at 2.69 million Scoville units, which is more than a million above the Reaper.
Curiously, though, both peppers were created by the same man. Ed Currie from South Carolina has made a career out of crossbreeding the hottest peppers in the world to create ever more demonic fire bombs.
Looking at his results, Curries clearly knows what he’s doing. We shudder to think how he plans to beat his Pepper X.
2. Samurai May Have Eaten Chili Before Battles
There’s a famous story going around on the internet that claims samurai ate chili peppers as a pre-battle ritual. Feeling the pain of the pepper is claimed to have made them feel less afraid of the slaughter to come.
It’s a good story, but there is scant little historical proof of it actually happening. Yet, it’s not completely impossible.
Chili peppers arrived in Japan sometime around the mid-16th century. That date also coincides with the Warring States Period, a nearly 200-year-long era of civil war within Japan.
Samurai were certainly going to war when chili sailed to Japan’s shores with Portuguese traders. It’s easy to imagine a warrior chowing down on some peppers to desensitize himself to pain before battle.
3. Only Mammals Feel the Burn
Eating piles upon piles of chili peppers is a surefire way to get a horrible stomach ache — unless you’re not a mammal. Birds, lizards, bugs, and most other forms of life can eat as much chili as they want worry-free.
Capsaicin, the chemical responsible for the burn of chili, only affects mammals. All other kinds of animals are completely immune to its painful properties.
It makes sense from the pepper plant’s point of view. Birds are among the most important methods for peppers to spread their seeds — if their fruit burned in the birds’ mouths, they probably wouldn’t want to eat them.
4. Chili Is an Effective Elephant Deterrent
As we just said, only mammals can feel the burn from chili peppers. And it doesn’t matter how big you are — capsaicin affects every mammal, from the smallest mouse to the biggest elephant.
In fact, farmers in Africa have discovered that chili is a fantastic elephant deterrent. The huge beasts hate even the smell of chili and don’t want to go anywhere near it.
So, the farmers started coating lengths of string with chili powder and fencing their fields with them. It’s crazy, but the smell of the chili keeps elephants far away from trampling their fields.
5. The Scoville Scale Began as a Medical Tool
Today, the Scoville scale is used primarily to measure the spiciness of chili peppers. The higher a pepper ranks on the scale, the hotter it is.
But that’s not why Wilbur Scoville developed the measurement system in 1912. He originally created it to help with formulating skin creams.
At the time, he worked for a company that used capsaicin in a pain-relieving skin cream. To discover the ideal amount of capsaicin to put in the product, Scoville designed his famous measuring system.
6. Capsaicin Works as a Painkiller
Yes, you read the previous entry correctly — Scoville’s company used capsaicin as a painkiller. In fact, it’s quite effective at that job.
If you’ve ever eaten a spicier pepper than you can handle, you might wonder how on earth capsaicin could work as a painkiller. The thing is, that agonizing burn is just the key to its pain-relieving properties.
When applied to the skin, capsaicin initially causes some pain, but it also numbs your pain receptors. So, after the first burn, you won’t feel whatever follows it.
7. India Consumes the Most Spices in the World
The countries of southern and southeastern are infamous for their hot and spicy dishes. But one stands above all others when it comes to spice consumption — India.
And it’s not just chili peppers that Indians pack away more than anyone else. It’s every kind of hot spice, including garlic, black pepper, and more.
In 2020, for example, India consumed nearly 5 million tons of spices. For comparison, the second-biggest spice consumer — Nigeria — used only around 650,000 tons.
8. Humans Have Always Loved Spicy Food
You might think the obsession with spicy foods is a modern phenomenon. That might be a reasonable assumption, considering how gung-ho we are about developing ever-spicier sauces and pepper varieties.
But the fact is that we’ve always loved a nice bit of burn in our foods. Take chili peppers, for example — humans have eaten them for nearly 10,000 years and started farming them about 6,000 years ago, making them one of the first plants to be cultivated in the Americas.
Garlic and black pepper, meanwhile, have been grown for at least 4,000 years. No matter how far back you go, some thing about humanity will always be the same, including our love for hot, spicy food.