By Pete Legrady
Part 2 of 3:
Last month, we started talking about a trending topic in hot sauce world- the Jolokia Pepper.If you missed that one, you can read it here
. To cloud the muddy waters even further, some people believe the pepper originates from the hills of Nagaland, a state on the southern banks of the river Brahmaputra and is roughly 300 miles east of Bhutan. Nagaland has a much larger population but had similar accessibility as Bhutan. Prior to 1918, Nagaland was primarily a tribal civilization with independent cultures. After the Independence of India in 1947 the tribes of Nagaland thought it would be beneficial to unify the tribes into one central political structure.
I too thought Nagaland was an adaptation of Peter Pan's NeverLand. Similar to the Lost Boy's of NeverLand, Nagaland has an ancient warrior class. This class was known for their ferocity and skill in battle. For those that believe the pepper originated in Nagaland also believe that the pepper was named for these warriors who used the pepper to increase their senses prior to the all too common skirmishes between tribes.
Hopefully that clears up some of the confusion between Naga, Bhot, Bhut, and Ghost peppers. Now on to a couple peppers that have been cultivated in botanical gardens since the certification of the Jolokia Pepper.
The next pepper in line of having the prestigious classification of the hottest pepper was the Trinidad Scorpion Butch T Pepper. The Trinidad Scorpion originates from Trinidad and Tobago. The country gained its independence in 1976 having been formerly a territory of Spanish, British, French, Dutch, and Courlander colonizers. This pepper is named the Scorpion because of the pointy end of the pepper looks similar to that of a scorpion.
The "Butch T" segment of the name comes from Butch Taylor who propagated the seeds and subsequent plants. The propagation occurred with the genetic combination of the Trinidad Scorpion Pepper and the Ghost Pepper. Some people believe the Trinidad Scorpion and the Ghost Pepper are different strains of the same pepper - there is no evidence to support this theory though.
The actual cultivation of this pepper is somewhat convoluted. The nearest I can find is that Butch Taylor requested some seeds from a seed bank in New Jersey from a participant of the bank named "Mark" who I can not find any information on whatsoever. Butch then sent a couple seeds to the Hippy Seed Company in Australia who then gave the seeds to The Chilli Factory also located in Australia. The Chilli Factory, 3.5 years later, claimed to have grown the hottest pepper in the world, passing the Ghost Pepper by almost 400,000 scoville units. The ButchT pepper was rated at the New Mexico State University's Chile Pepper Institute at slightly above 1,463,700 scoville units.
So how was the Butch T grown to make it such a highly capsaicin concentrated pepper? The thought is that the pepper was grown in the optimal growth environment with the right amount of heat and water. Ever wonder why most hot peppers are grown in South America, Australia, Texas, New Mexico, and Southern California? Find out in Part 3 in the next newsletter!
