Aflame

Oh, my friends, it's a cautionary tale.

If you are a novice gardener, and if your jalapeno plants have been bearing little deep green peppers with just the right amount of kick, and if you spy a deep red pepper on one plant, and if a test nibble yields pleasing results--

--do not, DO NOT, bite off a big hunk and chew it contemplatively like a cow with a case of autopyromania.

Because if you do, even if you can pretty much keep up with the big kids when it comes to spicy food, you are going to regret that chewing as soon as the swallow is over. The contemplative chewing will yield to a decidedly uncontemplative post-swallow phase, in which you are consumed by one thought:

YOWZA.

Next you will think, "Huh, who knew there were that many pain receptors on the posterior pharyngeal wall?" (Or maybe you will only think that if you are an SLP.) You will drink a glass of milk slowly, because you've heard that the fat should help to disperse the fire. It turns out that throwing fat on the fire isn't helpful. You will eat a slice of bread, slowly, trying to sop up the incendiary pepper residue. Bread isn't particularly helpful either. You will wonder if anyone has invented a teeny fire extinguisher for this situation. 

You will wander over to the computer, tentatively feeling your stinging lips. You will wonder if there are any holes scorched in your mucous membranes or if it just feels that way. You will write a blog post that starts out "If you are a novice gardener..."

Comments

[Lilian]

That's sadly hilarious! I hope the writing of the post brought some literary relief to your soul 'cause it's certainly a great post!

[Melanie B]

Yikes! Also, if you are a novice cook, wear gloves before slicing or dicing said peppers or you may put yourself or your loved ones into a world of pain. Just saying.

[Svetlana]

Lysterine. I ate an overripe banana pepper that was straight from hades. Lysterine finally worked at breaking down all that hot pepper juice/oil/demon poison.

[Summer]

At least you didn't touch your eye. I can definitely attest that it is a bad idea to touch your eye after handling peppers, and an even worse idea to get behind the wheel of a car after touching your eye after handling peppers. Why do I know this? Because many years ago, when I was living in a post-collegiate group house, my housemate came into the kitchen and asked me to move my car so he could back out of the driveway. On my way to fetch my keys, I brushed my hair off my face... with the hand I'd just been using to chop habaneros. My eye instantly swelled shut and gushed tears, but I still trooped out to move my car. Half-blind, I backed my car out of the driveway and straight into another housemate's brand new Mustang. Kids, don't try this at home.

[Rob]

Also beware of pepper hands plus diaper changes ...

[gina]

When Ben was 5, he did the same thing....
and touched his eye....
I was so scared...he was red and rashy with stinging lips....
It subsided, and everything was fine...BUT he doesn't ever want anything to do with any kind of pepper....EVER!

[Jamie]

When my husband and I were newly married and hosting his parents for dinner, I picked up a couple of habaneros without knowing what they were. "These are cute," I thought to myself.

While I was chopping the peppers I scratched my face and it started burning. I touched my eye and couldn't figure out for days how to clean my contact lens adequately so I could wear it again. I got pepper oil in the lemon chiffon pie I was making for dessert. In those days I was a lot wimpier about spicy food, and I found the black beans I was making to be intolerably, incomprehensibly hot.

We went out for dinner that night. :-)

[mandamum]

My then-1yo got into our farm produce box last year and dove into our little bundle of jalapenos. He was used to the bell peppers we usually have around, I'm guessing. He took them back into my closet and bit/broke each of them in half.... eventually, he came to seek me out and try to explain his spice predicament :) Poor guy--but somehow he managed not to put his fingers in his eyes.

--Amanda