By The Way I Tried To Say I'd Be There

Red Hot Chili Peppers: By the Way

Twenty years ago, the habanero pepper was listed by Guinness World Records as the hottest. It’s now several spots down from the top, but no one has discovered any new peppers. Instead, peppers are engineered in labs to have a heat far beyond nature. Ghost peppers and other hotter-than-hot chilis are little more than a series of never-ending one-upmanship, as scientists and hobbyists genetically engineer and crossbreed peppers to ever higher Scoville units. The Carolina Reaper, for example, was created by a hybrid of the a ghost pepper and a Red Savina Habanero. But to what end? At an insufferable 2.2 million SHU, the Carolina Reaper is too hot to use in the kitchen. These monsters seem to exist solely for hyperbolically labeled hot sauces and competitions at chicken wings restaurants looking to lure in the most susceptible type of person looking to prove himself by consuming hot wings. If you want hot, a habanero will do you just fine.

--Caitlin PenzeyMoog
On Spice: Advice, Wisdom, and History with a Grain of Saltiness

I am forever near a stereo saying, ‘What the fuck is this garbage?’
And the answer is always the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
--Nick Cave