Joe McNamee: Learning to beat the heat at the Irish Chilli Festival
The Irish Chilli Festival takes place in Cork's Marina Market on June 27th and 28th
The Irish Chilli Festival — June 27-28, at Cork’s Marina Market — features Europe’s largest ever gathering of hot sauce vendors, including several fine Irish producers previously featured here, along with a whole host of other family-friendly chilli-themed shenanigans.
The hottest ticket of all will be the the amateur chilli-eating contest hosted by Bristol’s Clifton Chilli Club — who boast 300m+ YouTube views and were featured on Netflix’s We are the Champions.
There is something cruelly compelling about a raw chilli-eating contest that draws out the inner sadist, as much fun to be had watching losers lose as there is in cheering on the victor — who in some sense are the biggest loser of all.
I have always adored chillis, though age has tempered my capacity for chilli-eating as an endurance sport. The first time I ever cooked with them was in a London squat in the 80s. After a single swallow of my vegetarian chilli bean stew, housemates abandoned ship and made a bolt for the cold milk. Pride saw me grimly soldiering onward, spoon by thermonuclear spoon, eyes and nose streaming, sweat dripping on to the table.
Five spoonfuls later, I was at the fridge wondering which bastard finished all the cold milk.
I learned to identify the varietals of various chillis, their place on the Scoville scale measuring the heat, and to use them appropriately. I learned that, when handling, never, ever, ever afterwards rub eyes, pick at nose or, worst of all, go for a pee if you’re a boy and need to ‘hold’ yourself.
All three have agonising consequences — the fact I know this illustrates I can be a very slow, even stupid learner. In time, not only did I develop a capacity to handle the heat but I came to relish their addictive properties, as body races to repair the ‘damage’ and repel the ‘attack’.
Chilli peppers contain capsaicin, a compound that similarly impacts on pain and heat receptors in your mouth as if you were eating food hot enough to burn; perhaps molten cheese on pizza straight out of the oven that you nonetheless immediately eat because it is pizza. This triggers an endorphin rush, the body’s natural painkillers bringing euphoria once actual pain recedes, akin to a runner’s high or a post-sea swim rush. The hotter the chilli, the greater the rush.
These days, I could never remotely entertain the notion of eating a raw, unaccompanied chilli; it must be in food, preferably cooked. I can still handle the mouth burn but as soon as it hits the oesophagus, I begin hiccuping uncontrollably. The impact can continue for a further 24 hours as it roars through the digestive system, causing cramps and other nasty side effects; heaven forbid you should have pre-existing IBS.
US food writer Matt Gross undertook a chilli-eating challenge, consuming three Carolina Reapers in 21.85 seconds. It took him 14 hours to recover from an aftermath that involved the symptoms of a heart attack. A 47-year-old man in the US ate a burger with ghost pepper puree and subsequently tore a 2.5cm hole in his oesophagus through coughing and retching.
In 2023, a 14-year-old boy from Massachusetts tried the Paqui One Chip Challenge, a single chip (crisp) spiced with a combination of Carolina Reaper and Scorpion chillis. It comes with protective glove, stickers, and certificate, all packaged in a coffin-shaped box. Though found to have had an underlying congenital heart defect, the poor kid died of cardiopulmonary arrest and the challenge was voluntarily pulled from the shelves by the makers, a subsidiary of Hershey.
The Carolina Reaper was once the hottest chilli on the planet as measured by the Scoville scale which grades chillis, with Scoville heat units (SHUs) measuring the amount of capsaicin. With jalapeno (2,500-8,000 SHU) as a benchmark, ghost pepper registers at 1.2m SHU, scorpions can hit 2m SHU, while the Carolina reaper can top 2.2m SHU. The world’s current hottest is Pepper X, peaking at over 3m SHU.
And ordinary civilians are going to put these into their mouths at the Irish Chilli Festival until they quit, get sick, or both? The winner is usually the last to get sick. I’m sure you get the appeal.
Head chef and former Euro-Toques Young Chef finalist Josef Quane at newly reopened Mountain House, outside Clonakilty, is welcoming his Euro-Toques peers for a series of summer collabs, culminating in a collective Grand Finale. Next up is Eoghan O’Flynn, of Cork’s Metropole Hotel followed by monthly outings right through to the grand finale (November 2) when all five will collaborate with Quane in what promises to be the mother of all feasts.
Taste Waterford is offering three immersive food tours. Two of them explore the city’s incredible food history and offer tasting experiences at five local venues, while the third, the ‘Mountain Splendour Taste Tour’, offers a full-day experience set against the Comeragh and Knockmealdown Mountains, introducing the terroir, traditions, and people of one of the lesser-hymned but no less lovely parts of the country.
Ever since I sold the stuff for a living in the early 90s, extra virgin olive oil has been a culinary obsession, used daily.
Sant’ Angelica (€55 for 500ml) is produced by an Irish couple, Ed and Laura Miller, now living in Tuscany, and is very good indeed.
Cold-pressed from last year’s harvest, it is sweet, grassy, and herbaceous with notes of almond and camomile. A luxurious mouthfeel leads to a peppery nip at the back of the throat, followed by a bracing bitterness in the finish to cleanse and refresh the palate. This is premium stuff, to be enjoyed as the star player with a bare minimum of accompaniments and never wasted in a vinaigrette or similar emulsions.
I relished it with leaves of crunchy Romaine lettuce and flaky sea salt, then mopping it all up with crusty sourdough baguette.
