Too hot

The only food plants currently growing in our garden are chillies (chilli peppers), oregano and a small bit of rainbow chard that survived the long hot summer. I had a habañero plant that survived last winter but didn’t start fruiting until late autumn. There are now plenty of fruit available for picking. I hadn’t harvested any fruit until today when I was gathering chillies to add to a black bean soup I was preparing. I only picked four and the rest were mostly jalapeños and a couple of the small Thai chillies.

The habañeros went in whole so we could pick them out instead of biting into them. Last year, this worked quite well and it provided a moderate amount of heat for the dish. But I don’t think they were particularly potent last year. It would seem they have gained a lot of heat since then because they were incredibly hot this time. I had one bowl of soup with some corn chips and Greek yoghurt (instead of sour cream) and I was fine even though it was rather hot. Then I went to get a bit more and added more chips and yoghurt. The second or third bite, I got a bit of the habañero and it slowly built up to a very painful experience. I grabbed a big chunk of crusty bread to try to cool my tongue but it only seemed to irritate for the first several minutes  and then settled down a bit. I tried to eat more and it seems it had spread throughout the soup. The Scientist brought some butter to add to the bread this time and that seemed to be a bit more soothing. When i had partially recovered, I simply couldn’t eat any more and abandoned my food.

This is the first time this has ever happened to me. I have made stews and soups that were really hot. One other black bean soup was probably just a bit too hot to enjoy it properly but I carried on eating until I finished. This time was much beyond enjoyment and my body is still feeling a bit traumatized. If I use more habañeros, I think I’ll have to use just one or two in the future, if I am brave enough to risk it next time.