Ghost chile; Some like it really hot

IMPHAL, India — Mexican jalapenos, Sichuan mala peppers, African kambuzi — mere child's play.

Although many places claim to have the maddest, baddest chile this side of Hades, northeast India's "ghost chile" is scientifically recognized as the hottest commercial chile pepper on the planet, 200 times spicier than jalapenos. The peppers are so hot that workers handling them wear goggles and gloves to avoid burns.

"One chile goes a long way," says Thoudam Anand, a thirtysomething government worker in Imphal, in Manipur state, who grows ghost chiles in his garden. "It's ulcer material."

Fall is peak season for this deceptively innocent looking, thumb-sized devil, which has different names in various parts of northeast India, including bhut jolokia, meaning ghost chile, and umorok, or tree chile.

Anand and his wife, Meena Longjam, settle down for a leisurely lunch under their gazebo as a fresh breeze wafts from the nearby jungle.

The carefully prepared meal starts with a dish of raw vegetables mixed with fragrant umorok fresh from the garden. They've toned it down for a visiting foreigner who thought he could handle the chile.

But the chile quickly shows who's boss, creating a ribbon of fire from lips to tongue to newly upset stomach. The discomfort lasts several hours.

A few days later at the Imphal airport, a few souvenir umorok are confiscated as a potential hijacking weapon. "No Manipur chile allowed," a policeman says gruffly.

The plump red and green chiles with wrinkly skin, which have grown naturally in northeast India for hundreds of years, are believed to be the result of a relatively rare natural mutation that strengthened their bite.

Here in Manipur state, most are grown by individuals and sold in local markets to spice up curries, sauces and pickles. In nearby Assam state, they are cultivated on commercial farms for export.

Chile peppers — native to Latin America and the Caribbean and believed to date back more than 8,000 years — were taken to Europe and then transported to Asia by traders hoping to build up Asian spice markets.

"It found its way to the Eastern Hemisphere by Christopher Columbus, who was looking for a new trade route to India," says Danise Coon, the Chile Pepper Institute's program coordinator. "Columbus mistakenly thought it was related to the black pepper, which is why it's called chile pepper."

The ghost chile in northeast India emerged from relative obscurity after the Chile Pepper Institute, at New Mexico State University, grew dozens of plants, used liquid chromatography to assess the capsaicinoids, or heat, molecules and submitted its findings to Guinness World Records in 2006, which certified it as the world's hottest.

The ghost chile clocks in at 1.1 million on the Scoville heat unit scale, a measure of spiciness, compared with the jalapeno's mere 5,000.

"Mexico gets all the attention for its chiles," says N. Tomba Singh, an agricultural scientist in Imphal. "But the real fame should go to Manipur."

Once a world record-holder, the ghost quickly became a darling of rabid chile heads, who meet at "hot lucks" worldwide to show off their fire-eating skills.

Being the hottest chile translates into big bucks. India's Frontal Agritech Ltd., the world's largest ghost chile producer, expects its exports of powder, paste and flakes to the United States and Europe to increase this year by more than 30 percent to about $600,000, helping produce tens of millions of dollars' worth of commercial salsas, marinades and sauces.

In March, a new chile was rated by Guinness as the world's hottest, the Trinidad Scorpion "Butch T" out of Australia, at 1.4 million SHUs. That's about 40 percent hotter than ghost chiles. Though not yet produced commercially, it's already sparking trouble in chile-land, with suggestions of trickery and sleight of hand.

Selecting the hottest chiles on a plant, cross-breeding, or de-veining samples all can boost readings. Purists grumble about "Frankenstein" samples, and some chile lovers even envision the danger of a "chile nuclear arms race."