It’s always gratifying to read about the spread of the chilehead obsession throughout the world. Now we knew that the U.K. had some chileheads of note, but this article from the Daily Mail Online spells it out in graphic detail, and we loved every word of it:

Some like it mind-blowingly hot: Meet the ‘chilli heads’ who eat it in everything from burgers to jam

By Tanya Gold
Last updated at 11:29 PM on 09th August 2009

Standing in a garden in Sussex, I am staring at the Dorset Naga, the world’s hottest chilli pepper. It is pale green and bulbous – it looks dangerous in the same way a cabbage looks dangerous.

So I stick out my tongue, tentatively, and touch the chilli with it. My tongue screams in anger and swells.

All around me are seemingly normal people, laughing, eating and shading their eyes from the sun. Except this is no normal garden and these are no normal people.

They are wearing chilli themed outfits – chillies on their T-shirts, their trousers, hats shaped like chillies, even chilli corsets.

They are carrying chillishaped clocks and pottery and buying paintings of chillies. They are admiring exhibitions of chilli plants – ‘Oh, that one is beautiful!’ – and swapping chilli anecdotes.

And they are eating chillies in every conceivable form – in jams and chutneys and burgers and chocolate.

Because these are the chilli addicts – or the chilli heads, as they are known. They have come to West Dean Gardens from all over Britain – and the world – to visit the annual Chilli Fiesta and to worship their god.

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