Satan's Ashes (Pt. 1)

[This is a guest post by Calypso for a first-hand account of what should be called "Top Chef DC - Scared Straight Edition". Mark and Angela are going to have at least another post up with (oh no) video.  I've asked only that they edit out any bodily functions and nudity. They didn't seem to know what I was talking about, but that's because they were silly enough to leave me alone with their camcorder while they were in the kitchen.]

For a few months now, I've been trying to train to eat this curry. Not for lack of trying, I couldn't find many foods in DC that were "really spicy". I order my food "Thai spicy" when I go to a Thai restaurant, and it always tastes good, but I didn't feel challenged. So, eventually the day finally came. After numerous reschedulings (or, as some people called them, "wussing-outs"), we made Satan's Ashes curry. 

In the weeks running up to the event, a lot of people found it helpful to give me "tips" about the ghost pepper. Tips, here, are broadly defined to include horror stories like: "the ghost pepper will blister your skin on contact," "it's used as a chemical weapon," "you could actually cause permanent harm to your insides," etc. Thanks guys. Here's some equally helpful tips for dealing with a bear attack:

• Bears have razor sharp claws
• Bears have impenetrable skin and shooting them just makes them hungrier
• It is not enough to just be faster than your friend, the bear will disable your slower and now emotionally-hurt friend quickly and then chase you down as well before eating you both. (Bears value loyalty and friendship!)

Forewarned that I was probably killing myself (and let's face it, these guys warned us plenty), I ventured out Sunday afternoon to pick up the ingredients. Given that the recipe supposedly serves four, it makes an awful lot of food: 

4 Diced Chicken breasts 
Starly's Satan's Ashes sachets 
6 tbsp Vegetable oil 
4 tbsp white wine vinegar 
2 medium onions (finely chopped) 
6 cloves of garlic (crushed) 
1 tbsp tomato puree 
1 Vine ripe tomato (Chopped)  
280ml water (Thanks to google, we learned that this is 1 1/4 cups!)

Due to the limitations of my pantry and local organic market, we made some minor alterations (simple white vinegar and tomato paste instead of puree) and got to work. "Work" meant that I crushed some garlic and opened a can of tomato paste while Angela did all the cooking; even when my life's not on the line, I would always rather have Angela behind the spatula. I threw on some basmati rice while she got the curry prepped and simmering, and then we "chilled."

Of course, at this point I was a little panicked. For one thing, Angela had donned a breathing mask and did most of her work looking like a tourist during SARS season. Her dad had advised I take a Prilosec, which I did despite only having heartburn once before. A friend suggested drinking a tablespoon of oil, and I obediently gave myself what Rachael Ray calls EVOO-throat (yeah, I was disappointed to learn what she meant, too). Angela tasted a few sips of the curry for seasoning purposes and looked like she'd been slapped in the face. And also in the lungs. With pepper. A sachet of pepper. Yeah, that's a good metaphor.

Interlude: Fun word question of the day, how do YOU pronounce "sachet"? SOME people pronounce it to rhyme with "hatchet." Other (correct) people pronounce it as "sashay." Of course, being right doesn't mean people don't laugh at you for calling something a "sashay." Memo to spice-manufacturers: Just call it a packet.  kthxbai.

Back in the chemical weapons factory, some of the curry dripped onto Ang's exposed leg when she decided to sample it, and within a few minutes, blisters started showing up where it hit her. While my "rational brain" was pretty sure it was a temperature burn and not a chemical burn, my "survival brain" was pretty sure that things that burn skin do far worse things once they're inside you (I'm calling that the "Ridley Scott Alien theory of nutrition"). Let's just be up front here: "survival brain" was not cool with a lot of what happened on Sunday.

Around 5:30, the curry was simmered, the oil in my throat was properly already gone, and everyone was impatiently calling for the main event. I scooped up a quarter of the pan on top of a cup of basmati rice, then scooped a little more when certain people complained that I was short changing them. Then I sat down and took my first bite.

Survival Brain: <groans> This is really hot, we need to stop this now. 
Foodie Brain: Woah.....this is really good.  Like, really really yummy! 
Survival Brain: Idiot. 

But Foodie Brain was on to something, it was a really tasty curry! Now, obviously I had a great chef putting it all together and seasoning it, but I was surprised that I could actually pick up on rich, familiar, hearty flavors. The heat was not too bad at first, and the after-burn was just a solid 8 out of 10 after a few seconds.

But it didn't stop after a few seconds.

On good advice from one of the onlookers, I started plowing through bites quickly to try and get through as much as possible before the heat really hit me. By the time I'd taken down a fifth of my plate, I realized that the sweats had kicked in. Every sweat gland in my body. Every. Single. Square inch. But that's just cosmetic (and gross, I was informed), I could handle that. I kept powering through.

Then I realized that breathing was becoming painful. It wasn't a respiratory problem, but I was still doing an awful lot of talking and all the air going in and out of my mouth was just aggravating the burning parts of my mouth. At one point, someone asked me to show my tongue in case there were blisters or something. No blisters, but sticking my tongue out felt like putting a match out on it.

At this point, people were getting over the nerves and started eating with me. Most people were content to have one or two bites and stop, but the consensus confirmed what Foodie Brain kept trying to tell me: this is a very yummy curry! Of course, the consensus also backed up Survival Brain: "This is not, except under the loosest of definitions, food for people to eat." A couple hard-core troopers had good-sized plates: roomie, Angela, and Mark all downed a good amount of it, though they were clearly feeling the burn too. The nice part of this meant I could stop talking for a while and focus on my plate.

The big surprise of the night was that it really wasn't that bad. Spicy food lovers will tell you that you get a real endorphin rush from hot food. Mine kicked in around ten minutes into it, or at least that's when my mouth stopped hurting and I actually picked up my pace. Honestly, I wasn't eating like a duck or anything, I was chewing each bite and tasting the flavors and enjoying every second, but I also wasn't leaving myself downtime between bites. I think the endorphins kept me going until about halfway through my plate.

At the halfway mark, I hit a whole new problem: I'd load my fork, lift it up, and my fork just stopped halfway to my mouth. Survival brain clearly was working his motor control mojo, and I realized I had to really will myself to put each new bite in my mouth. That's never happened before, and it was....weird. Next time, I'm going to try drinking a few more beers before eating. Try screwing with my motor control then, Survival Brain!

Wait, did I just say "next time"?

Far less important at the time, but kinda creepy in retrospect, I was pretty much speaking by reflex at this point. It was like being very drunk: I'm sure everything I said was reasonably related to the question at hand, but it was very hard to focus mentally on forming answers, and a minute later I either couldn't remember or couldn't explain what I'd just said. Once, when I was younger and probably just as stupid, I ate a dried habanero and had auditory hallucinations for a half hour or so (I kept thinking someone was calling my name, and my little brother kept explaining that I was an idiot and should just try to sit quietly). I'll be googling "spicy" and "awesome brain stuff" later, so maybe y'all will be getting an educational follow-up.

Interlude: Here's the conversation where I told my brother about Satan's Ashes: 
Me: Hey, Pat, I'm going to eat the world's spiciest curry! 
Pat: <sigh> 
Me: What? 
Pat: Remember when you ate that habanero?  Remember how you felt? 
Me: God, yeah, that was great. 
Pat and Survival Brain: <in unison> Idiot.

I keep digressing because, in all honesty, the rest of it's a little blurry. From what I remember, I mostly just kept on eating. Sometimes Mark would ask me questions and I'd try to respond; I'm sure the video will show that I was less coherent than normal. Hell, I forgot Rainier Wolfcastle's name. Freakin' McBain, man. I may have actually called him Wolfbain.  <facepalm> I also started getting pains in my upper stomach, then my lower stomach, nothing truly painful but definitely noticeable.

But then I was done. I got through that plate, walked into the kitchen and ate one more bite out of the pan as a final "F U" to the ghost pepper, and got myself another beer (I don't like milk, but I tried a sip just to see if it helped much. It didn't, so I just drank diet coke and beer to try to bring my mouth temperature down while eating). I felt triumphant, but also a little let down. I was fully expecting this to be a real physical ordeal. I thought I'd be pounding my fist on the table, crying, etc. Instead, half an hour later, I was playing with a two year old and feeling pretty solid. It was still the hottest thing I've ever eaten, hands down, but I'm beginning to think that there may not be naturally occurring spices that I can't just eat with impunity.

9PM Update: I decided to take a nap, mostly from fullness. I woke up an hour later with a most insistent desire to visit the little boys room. I was terrified that I was going to find out why the blog post (link) that started all this was called "The Day My Arse Died", but no such luck. Perhaps my gut is actually as strong as I'd hoped.

10:30 PM Update: Okay, the pains in my gut are getting a little worse. I make a quick run around the corner to follow roomie's lead and grab some Ben and Jerry's chocolate fudge brownie ice cream.  Roomie says his mouth is still a little burned, and I feel like I've been kicked in the gut. The ice cream helps a lot, but then again, ice cream would make me feel better about pretty much anything.

1AM Update: Okay, I would like to get some sleep, but my intestines are back to doing their twisty earthworm-dance of rage. Then, my fourth long bathroom break of the night, and a realization that I am not actually impervious to all kinds of pain. The good news is that I now know that food takes about 7.5 hours to travel from my bow to my stern. I post a new status message: "Satan's Ashes are trying to stage a comeback, attacking my flank." Giggled very briefly, then winced far longer.

Next day update: I brought leftovers into work so that co-workers can see what I do to myself when unsupervised. Only two people want to try it, one of them has a bite and politely declines any more. The other says she's bringing rice in tomorrow to eat more of it. Having mixed feelings of regret that the curry will soon be gone and also a feeling of "my tummy hurts a lot", I decide to try some more of it.  I eat another cup or so of the leftovers before my stomach starts complaining, and I begrudgingly put it in the fridge again. I'm getting repetitive, but yum!  (And, five minutes later, ow!)

Bottom line:

The curry is the spiciest thing I've ever eaten, and it will probably do a number on your insides even if the mouth-heat is something you're used to. Spice-heads will love it, it's something you should all try at least once, and given how great the curry tasted, I'm glad I ordered a bunch of other mixes from the same company (which helps because the international postage will get split across more items). I'll definitely do this again, but probably only once a year, maybe twice. The curry spices are in one packet, then heat spices are in another, so you really can scale it down to taste, but if you're not going for the gold, I doubt it's worth it to pay for international shipping.

Product Description:http://www.starlys.co.uk/products_indian/satans_ashes.html

U.S. Orders:http://www.chileseeds.co.uk/satans_ashes.htm

Comments

[Dan]

An accurate recollection of what happened, except you left out the part where I said "You call that a curry? This is a curry!" and then you said "No it's not, it's a spoon" and I said "I see you've played curry spoony before"

[Angela]

I can't believe he didn't include that. It was my favorite part. Heh. "Curry spoony."

[Nickgb]

By the end, I had realized that there was no spoon at all! Not in the Matrix sense, though, the curry had actually dissolved it.

[karen]

I tried it and it was DELICIOUS! Tongue = still tingling. Also, I can see daylight through the hole it burned in my stomach.

[Angela]

Karen-
Yup. I concur. Also, I would totally try it again.

[Debb]

I love you guys for including the play by play of the aftermath because the uppity bloggity bloghers would never do something like that =)

[Angela]

Thanks, Debb! We are committed to bringing you the whole truth and nothing but the truth, even if it's not...classy. If you decide to try this curry, I think it's important to go into it knowing exactly what you're getting into. And we love you because I think you're our kind of girl!