Well, it falls to me to report the story of this year’s North Market Chile Pepper Eating Contest. Like last year’s contest, I tried to capture the images of what I experienced along the way, but I’m not quite sure that I can fully describe the searing pain of what happened. Let’s start from the beginning…

This year’s contest was definitely going to be different than that for 2006. Not just in format, but in looks as well. They moved us from behind a random table in the common area of the 2nd floor of the North Market to a dedicated kitchen-type area that was much better suited for this sort of event. Also, there was a change in how we were going to eat the peppers…but I’ll get into that in a minute. As we the capsaicin gladiators entered the room, we saw before us bowls filled with chile peppers destined to tantalize our tastebuds.

Let me walk you through the experience of being a contestant in this competition….

First, there was the debriefing…sorta like a mission statement about what this contest was and how we would go about the process of eating all the peppers. Each round consisted of eating one (1) pepper from each of the bowls that were passed around, and there were eight (8) peppers in total to eat. Each pepper had to be consumed in total, meaning you had to eat all the flesh, seeds, and tissue within the pepper. Yup, all that stuff in the peppers that had all the heat had to be eaten…and we were loosely told that each pepper had to be chewed a minimum of three times for those out there who thought fast-swallowing would dilute the heat a little. So, we all lined up and got ready to rumble. (I am the one in the red shirt on the far left in the above picture, btw) We were also each given a pint of whole milk which was placed in front of us on the counter. Each of us was free to drink from it whenever we needed to do so…with one all-important caveat. If you drank the milk, you were disqualified and out of the competition.

So, with legal disclaimers signed and quivering with anticipation, we began the chile pepper eating extravaganza. First up was a cherry pepper, which had been mistakenly labeled as a Red Fresno. Not a heat level of 6.5 as marked, it really was more like a 2…and was just hot enough to warm up our tastebuds a bit. Each of us managed to kill one of those without much effort at all.

Next up was the good ol’ jalapeno. Rated at 5.5/10, this was a pepper that we all knew quite well. However, they seemed to find jalapenos that looked like they were grown on steroids since they were a bit on the large size. I grabbed mind and started chomping it down. It was during this moment that a couple of realizations hit me like a ton of bricks. First, I immediately regretted plowing through a ton of chili and salsa during the previous hours…and most of it was still sitting in my stomach. Next, I wasn’t too used to eating entire peppers like this. Lastly, even if it was just a jalapeno, the heat was starting to build already as I neared the end of it. The fact that I noticed this on only the second pepper was an ominous sign that I might not make it to the end of the line.

Next up on the trail of tears was the serrano pepper, also with a mistakenly wrong labeled heat level. Not really a 5, it really was more of a 6/10. I’ve claimed this to be a favorite of mine lately, but that was NOT like this. As I started chewing the pieces, I was feeling every bit of that “six-heat” despite how good it tasted. Hey, at least it was one of the smaller peppers out of this bunch. With three down, I was well on my way.

Reaching the halfway point was with the Dutch Red. Rated as a 6/10, it looked very much like a baby cayenne or a de Arbol pepper. Medium-length and full of seeds, it had no shortage of heat for its intended ‘victims.’ As I munched and suffered a little more, another horrific realization hit me. It was just the chile eating that caused the heat-laced pain, the other factor was the time between rounds. As I finished my Dutch Red, I (and my fellow contestants) had to wait until everyone was done with their own pepper. This time, whether it was ten seconds or 3 minutes, seemed like an eternity from hell when your mouth is on fire! Soon enough, we were on to the next pepper but with my resolve (and seemingly my palate) weakening with each bite.

Also at a heat level of 6/10, our next tastebud torture device was the Yellow Caribe chile. While it looked like a Hungarian wax pepper, it shared neither the heat or the relative mass of that benign pepper. This was moderately large and with enough heat such that I felt like my mouth had been doused in kerosene and set afire. As I chomped this one down, with its prodigious amount of seeds & placental tissue, it was at about this time where I was really starting to get full. Full, bloated, and full of peppers was surely a recipe for regurgitation…but I continued to soldier on a little more.

After finally vanquishing the Yellow Caribe, I was on to level 6 of 8 which was the so-called Long Hot Pepper. At a 7.5/10 heat level, this one was simply friggin’ huge. I swear the pepper was a foot long, or so it seemed. By this time, the fire in my mouth was burning at medium-high. I started working my way from tip to stem on this big ol’ pepper, and the heat turned up a another notch. By the time I finished, it was full-on high and causing my nose to run, my head to sweat, and my palate to sizzle rather uncomfortably. As I waited to start the next round, and with the Finger Hot Green (8/10) in hand, I felt a surge of heat and knew I was finished. I took my pint of milk and walked off stage to suffer in my own masochistic, pathetic way. I was just too full and suffering a little too much this time around.

As I took a little walk, slurping my milk and trying to keep my peppers down, I wandered back to see the finale of the contest. I wasn’t the first, nor was I the last, of the contestants to bow out before it was ultimately over. After the Finger Hot Green round, four contestants were left to face the bad mamma-jamma that is the habanero. Each person was allowed to choose either a yellow or orange one, which they each ate with sweat pouring off some of them in buckets. In the end, five contestants out of the original nine (including our only woman to participate) vanquished the habanero and claimed their prize for beating all those peppers into submission.

As for me, I had to kill a whole pint of milk just to cool my palate off and be able to breathe without panting due to the heat in my mouth. I’ll definitely do this again (which is what I said last year), but I’m definitely going to have to toughen up my tastebuds before the next contest. Whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, right? If so…then I am mighty!!

Stay tuned, as I will post a video of the entire competition that will be in the upcoming post about the recap of the Fiery Foods Festival in general!

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