Hot Sauce!

[Jimbo]

That's good information to have. I had no idea that kind of thing could happen from eating a pepper.

I thought I liked really hot, peppery foods, but I recently found out there are limits. I tried out some Paqui Ghost Pepper chips. Well, they are the genuine article alright, but I realized they were a bit too much for me. I got upset stomach pains and maybe even a headache. Although not nearly as bad an effect as the guy got from eating the world's hottest pepper, I discovered I'm not as hot spice-tolerant as I thought I was.

[GeneChing]

I tried some of those Pagui Ghost Pepper Chips too. They were on sale when I was grocery shopping and I was hungry (never shop for groceries when hungry). As I was driving home, I tore into those feckin chips and they scorched me. I had to pull over because my eyes were tearing so bad that I couldn't drive. I only ate a few chips, then spent the rest of the day trying to convince my family to try one, just to validate my experience (or at least not feel so wimpy). Now I know why those were on sale.

[GeneChing]

That's good information to have. I had no idea that kind of thing could happen from eating a pepper.

I thought I liked really hot, peppery foods, but I recently found out there are limits. I tried out some Paqui Ghost Pepper chips. Well, they are the genuine article alright, but I realized they were a bit too much for me. I got upset stomach pains and maybe even a headache. Although not nearly as bad an effect as the guy got from eating the world's hottest pepper, I discovered I'm not as hot spice-tolerant as I thought I was.

Massachusetts tenth grader Harris Wolobah, 14, DIES after participating in TikTok viral 'One Chip Challenge' - first fatality amid viral craze
A 14-year-old has died after eating what is said to be the world's spiciest chip
Harris Wolobah was a student at Doherty Memorial High School in Massachusetts
The chip is made using two of the spiciest chili peppers and is meant only for adults
By MACKENZIE TATANANNI FOR DAILYMAIL.COM
PUBLISHED: 16:56 EDT, 4 September 2023 | UPDATED: 03:35 EDT, 5 September 2023

A tenth-grade boy has suddenly died after partaking in the viral 'One Chip Challenge' and eating what is said to be the spiciest chip in the world.

According to NBC Boston, Harris Wolobah died on the same day he participated in the online trend known as the "One Chip Challenge." Harris hailed from Worcester, Massachusetts and was only 14 at the time of his death.

On September 1, the boy's mother was called to the school when Harris complained of a stomachache. He'd eaten the dangerously spicy chip after it was given to him by a classmate.

The young teen felt better after going home but he passed out at 4.30pm when he was about to leave for basketball tryouts.

Speaking with the Worcester Telegram, police Lt. Sean Murtha said the boy was unresponsive and not breathing. He was taken to the hospital and pronounced dead.

While Harris's death marks the first reported fatality after eating the chips, many other children have needed medical attention after eating them.


Harris Wolobah, 14, died hours after eating a spicy tortilla chip as part of the 'One Chip Challenge,' a social media trend that has gained billions of views on TikTok. The Massachusetts teen was a talented athlete described by family as 'a light that lit up the room'


Harris complained of a stomachache after eating the chip which was provided by a classmate. He seemed to be doing fine hours later but suddenly collapsed when he was about to head to basketball practice

In October 2022, a school district in Lafayette, Louisiana banned the chips from all campuses after multiple students needed medical attention.

Less than one month later, paramedics were called to a high school in Dunwood, Georgia, prompting police to issue a warning about the snack.

The 'One Chip Challenge' is a marketing campaign surrounding a single tortilla chip that is advertised as the spiciest in the world.

The challenge has drawn a following across social media, with the '#onechipchallenge' tag boasting over two billion views on TikTok.

Manufactured by Paqui since 2016, the chip is the product of Texas-based Amplify Snack Brands which was acquired by The Hershey Company in 2017.

A new flavor is released every year, and the 2023 edition became available on Amazon starting August 9. While under ten ingredients are listed, two that stand out the most are the California Reaper Pepper and Naga Viper Pepper.

The California Reaper Pepper was officially named the world's hottest pepper, measuring up to 2.2 Million Scoville Heat Units (SHUs) on the Scoville Scale. The Naga Viper Pepper came in just below it at 1,382,118 SHUs.

The scale measures the strength of various peppers relative to capsaicin, the compound that gives chili peppers their heat. Pure capsaicin measures 16 million Scoville units.


The 2023 edition of the 'One Chip Challenges' features a tortilla chip flavored with two of the spiciest peppers possible, the California Reaper Pepper and the Naga Viper Pepper. The California Reaper is ranked as the world's spiciest pepper

The single chip comes in a coffin-shaped box emblazoned with a red skull.

A warning label on the promotional site reads: 'Keep out of reach of children. Intended for adult consumption.'

The page encourages people to seek medical attention if they experience complications like difficulty breathing, fainting or 'extended nausea'.

Paqui has run an ad campaign challenging people to test if they can take the pain.

A graphic on the site reads 'How long can you last before you spiral out?' and features an image of a grim reaper gripping a snake.

Those who can go one hour without eating or drinking anything to counter the heat are deemed an 'Apex Predator'.

It remains unclear if the spicy chip contributed to Harris's death and an autopsy is pending.

On September 3, Dr. Rachel Monárrez, Superintendent of Worcester Public Schools, issued a statement that was published to the Worcester Public Schools website.

She referred to the teen as a 'rising star'.

“As a mother and educator, I cannot imagine how hard this is on his family, friends and teachers. My heart goes out to all who knew and loved him,' Monárrez wrote.

'It is during the most trying times that the community of Worcester comes together and this is one of those times. May we stay focused on allowing the grief and healing process during this difficult time.'

A GoFundMe fundraiser was set up by Tashia Roberts, the boy's cousin, the day after his passing with a goal of $30,000.

At the time of writing over $20,000 had already been raised.

'The pain our family is experiencing is unimaginable. Harris was a light that lit up the room with his presence and subtle charm,' she wrote.

The teen was described as intelligent, quirky and talented, with a passion for video games and basketball.

'Our family is planning to lay Harris to rest in the coming weeks, so I’m hoping that with the help of this compassionate community, we can raise enough funds to alleviate the burden of funeral expenses for his parents and siblings during this incredibly difficult time,' Roberts said.

RIP Harris Wolobah

[GeneChing]

Sriracha lovers are now buying this bottle at Costco


Sriracha lovers are now buying this bottle at Costcovia maxyedor / Reddit
By Carl Samson
2 days ago

CUSTOMERS STILL STRUGGLING to get ahold of Huy Fong Foods’ sriracha are reportedly getting their fix from a rival brand that costs cheaper at their local Costcos.
Driving the news: Huy Fong Foods has faced a shortage of its famous green-capped sauce since 2022 after chili pepper suppliers in California, New Mexico and Mexico experienced record droughts. The Irwindale-based company previously sourced its peppers from Underwood Ranches — also in California — for 28 years, but their business relationship ended with a legal battle that resulted in a $23.3 million award for the farm.
The shortage of the sauce has since led to exorbitant online resale prices and missing bottles in restaurants. Huy Fong Foods has allayed concerns with announcements of limited supply, but some who manage to snag new bottles have complained about its taste.
“Your new sauce doesn’t taste the same. The old [one] is better. This one isn’t good,” one customer commented in August.
Enter Underwood: Underwood Ranches, based in neighboring Camarillo, has stepped into the hot sauce market with its own sriracha. While Huy Fong Foods has a rooster for its iconic logo, Underwood stamps its bottles with a Chinese dragon.
What customers are saying: Frustrated by the shortage and/or the alleged “different taste” of Huy Fong Foods’ sriracha, some customers have begun looking out for alternatives. Tabasco, for one, had the bestselling sriracha in the U.S. by the end of 2023.
Underwood’s sriracha is emerging as a viable contender. Last week, a Costco shopper took to Reddit to share their store find: a two-, 17-ounce (482-gram) bottle pack for $8.
“Looks like another copycat sriracha, except that it’s made by Underwood Farms. Huy Fong sriracha sauce has been basically non-existent since they had a falling out with Underwood, who had previously been growing all their peppers,” wrote Reddit user maxyedor.
Users expressed support for the new product, which has also been spotted in Austin and Indiana Costcos. Some said they like it more, with one declaring it as “the Sriracha.”
Still, one user argued that having peppers from the same farm does not make it original, as “there is more to the spice than just peppers.” Another suggested that Huy Fong Foods’ new sauce tastes the same as its old recipe.
What’s next: Huy Fong Foods’ current production capacity is unknown. As of November 2023, the company said it was still dealing with a limited supply of raw materials, but more bottles have reportedly begun arriving in shelves in the past weeks.
At the same time, the impact of Underwood’s sriracha remains to be seen. The dragon-bearing bottles sell for $23.50 for two in the company’s online store, making the ones at Costco apparently cheaper.

Should've trademarked that name...

[GeneChing]

The surprising story of how chili crisp took over the world
As ubiquitous as chilis are to modern Chinese cuisine, the plant only arrived in the 16th century. Over hundreds of years, farmers refined their crop, and now China ranks first in the world for fresh chili production.
PHOTOGRAPH BY MARIAH TAUGER, LOS ANGELES TIMES/GETTY IMAGES
ByErin Blakemore
April 12, 2024



Home chefs crave it. Restaurants incorporate it into bold new recipes. It’s chili crisp, and it’s the current darling of the food world. The Chinese condiment, which incorporates chili peppers, oil, and other ingredients like garlic, onion, peppercorns, and even fermented soybeans, is a kitchen powerhouse known for its versatility and kick. But how did the must-have concoction get started? Here’s how chili crisp was born—and why it’s so beloved today.

A spicy introduction
Chilis weren’t always in China, says Brian Dott, a history professor at Whitman College and author of The Chile Pepper in China: A Cultural Biography. Originating in Central and South America, Capsicum plants were unknown in China until around the 16th century, when a boom in exploration and trade brought chilis to the Chinese mainland.

The first written record of chili in China dates from 1591—and it isn’t exactly a rave review. Gao Lian, a playwright who lived near what is now Shanghai, wasn’t “all that excited about it as a condiment or a medicine,” Dott says of his account. Instead, he used it as a decorative plant.

Workers dry fresh chili peppers in Chongqing, China.
PHOTOGRAPH BY QIU HONGBIN, VCG/GETTY IMAGES
But while elite Chinese enjoyed chili peppers in their decorative gardens, the masses began eating—and enjoying—the pungent plants. By 1765, local historians noted that chilis were used to flavor sauces, vinegar, savory oils, and preserved vegetables in Hunan. There’s even a recipe for a condiment reminiscent of chili crisp in The Harmonious Cauldron, the earliest Chinese culinary book to include chili peppers.

Written around 1790, the recipe is short and spicy: “Start with sesame oil. Place whole chili peppers in the sesame oil and fry completely. Remove the chiles, preserving the oil for later use.”

A national symbol
Unlike other spices, chili peppers weren’t farmed and traded as commodities. Instead, they were passed from person to person and cultivated in small crops, says Dott, falling into the hands of skilled farmers who bred even better chilis over time. These peppers—and the condiment made by frying them in oil—became must-have ingredients all over China, eventually filtering to every level of society and becoming so ubiquitous that they were considered part of the nation’s identity.

Peppers even played a role in Chinese politics: Mao Zedong, the founder of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, was from Hunan and relished spicy foods. “He loved chili peppers,” says Dott, even going so far as to say that revolution was impossible without chili. Mao mocked those in his inner circle who couldn’t stand the heat, suggesting their inability to tolerate hot chili peppers meant they were cowards. That association of chili with military might and macho manhood persists to this day, Dott says.

Modern chili crisp
By the 20th century, chilis fried in oil were a staple in homes and restaurants. But though the condiment was brought to the United States and served at Chinese restaurants, it took until 1997 for chili crisp to be produced and sold on a commercial scale. That year, restaurateur Tao Huabi began selling Lao Gan Ma Spicy Chili Crisp from China’s Guizhou Province.

The condiment became an international sensation, and her fortune is now estimated at $1.05 billion thanks to the zippy sauce and over a dozen creative variations. One Lao Gan Ma chili crisp even contains beef, but isn’t available in the U.S. due to agricultural laws prohibiting imported Chinese meat.

Over time, chili crisp gained a cult following—and even courted controversy. This March, Korean American celebrity chef David Chang’s brand Momofuku attempted to stop other manufacturers from using the name “chili crunch” on their products, leading to quibbling over, among other things, the spelling of the word “chili” and the authenticity of mass-produced chili oils.

For Dott, it’s all a function of a food whose intense flavor sparks intense emotions. “You can learn a lot about a culture through food,” he says. From medicine to Momofuku, it seems the condiment won’t stop bringing the heat any time soon.

That lead shot makes me think of this.

[GeneChing]

Momofuku Will No Longer Wage Its 'Chili Crunch' Trademark War


Tim Mosenfelder/Getty Images
BY*WENDY LEIGH/UPDATED: APRIL 15, 2024 11:30 AM EST

Trademark and patent skirmishes happen all the time, sometimes morphing into all-out war, pitting big-time players against one another in corporate show-downs or legal standoffs. But this was different. In David and Goliath style, a giant in the Asian food and restaurant market threw the first stone, aimed downward at culinary members of the close-knit Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) community. The conflict centers on a common Asian condiment known as 'chili crunch'*for which celebrity chef David Chang and his Momofuku food and restaurant empire was attempting to obtain and enforce a trademark. Chang's Momofuku took the step of threatening small companies also using the term — but is now back-pedaling after a public uproar.

Momofuku has already trademarked the name chile crunch, spelled with an "e" and was also applying for ownership of the similar spelling of chili crunch, with an "i," which is also commonly called chili crisp. By naming the spicy, crunchy oil-based Momofuku condiment "crunch" instead of "crisp," Chang claimed proprietary use, consequently mailing out seven cease-and-desist letters to small-scale makers of products with the same name. The backlash was swift and personal.*Many took issue with trademarking a name that's been used so prolifically in Asian family recipes for generations. The letters gave recipients 90 days to discontinue using both versions of the chili crunch name.*

Now, less than two weeks after The Guardian published an article in which a lawyer for one of the smaller businesses called Momofuku a "trademark bully," Chang and Momofuku have made an about-face. He has announced that his company would no longer enforce this trademark fight.*

Backlash and refection change Chang's trademark enforcement


Brent Hofacker/Shutterstock
David Chang has passionate fans, many of whom see him as a role model and a shining example of success in the industry. That includes some recipients of the letter, who expressed disappointment and sadness that Chang would undercut others who are bringing Asian foods into the mainstream of American cuisine. Others fought back in unconventional ways. A spokesperson for Seattle's MiLA food brand, which received a letter, even issued a taste-test challenge over social media, offering to settle the matter with a blind taste of each company's product, suggesting that "Winner keeps the name, loser (it'll be you) backs off."

Whatever the reason for changing course, Momofuku will no longer challenge those once perceived as violating the trademarked name. In a statement emailed to the Associated Press, Chang explained his change of heart:*"Over the past week, we have heard the feedback from our community and now understand that the term 'chili crunch' carries broader meaning for many," he wrote. "This situation has created a painful divide between Momofuku, the AAPI community we care deeply about, and other companies sharing grocery store shelves. But the truth is, we all want the same things: to grow, to succeed and to make America's pantries and grocery stores a more diverse place."

Read More: https://www.tastingtable.com/1561816...trademark-war/

It took me a bit before I realized this was 'chili crunch'. It was such a ubiquitous condiment in Chinese restaurants back in the day.

[GeneChing]

'Too green': Off-color peppers halt Huy Fong's production of Sriracha until Labor Day
Isaiah Murtaugh
Ventura County Star


This file photo shows Mark Aboueid, owner of Santa Cruz Market in Ventura, holding a bottle of Huy Fong Food's Sriracha. The iconic rooster-stamped sauce could disappear from store shelves again this summer.
Huy Fong Foods' iconic rooster-stamped Sriracha could disappear from store shelves again this summer — this time because of an off-color pepper supply.

In an April 30 letter to wholesale buyers, the company said it was canceling deliveries of all products, including its chili garlic and sambal oelek, after starting Monday due to issues with the current chili supply.

"We have determined that it is too green to proceed," the missive read.

Though the green tinge doesn't affect the sauce's quality or flavor, Huy Fong Foods wrote, the company plans to halt production until at least Labor Day, when the next pepper growing season begins.

The company said in emailed responses to the Ventura County Star that the document is real but said "at this time, we have no comment." Huy Fong sent a similar email to USA TODAY.

For 28 years, Huy Fong's richly red Sriracha was made with peppers from a single grower: Underwood Ranches in Camarillo. But that closely knit partnership devolved into a contract dispute and legal battle that ended in 2019 when a jury awarded $23.3 million to Underwood. Jurors said Huy Fong breached its contract and fraudulently withheld information from Underwood.

Huy Fong turned to other growers, but that pepper pipeline has so far proved unreliable.

The company halted production in June 2022, saying a drought affected the quality of peppers from its suppliers in Mexico. Huy Fong Sriracha reappeared on shelves a few months later, but supplies remained low through much of 2023.


The green-capped bottles made a comeback late last year, around the time it emerged that an anonymous buyer was making the rounds among California pepper farmers, asking them to plant hundreds of acres of jalapeño crops.

Huy Fong growing pains with new peppers for Sriracha

Stephanie Walker, co-director of the Chile Pepper Institute at New Mexico State University, said the green tint in the latest round of peppers could be due to a too-early harvest.

Jalapeños start green, said Walker, but go red and develop sweeter flavor as they mature. Growers typically target a maximum percentage of green peppers in their harvest, she said.

Craig Underwood, the owner of Underwood Ranches, said the loads of peppers his farms delivered to Huy Fong targeted a maximum of 10% green peppers.

Walker said her guess was that the new crop wasn't fully mature.

The future may not be brighter. Walker said growing peppers in the crop's current southwestern U.S. hotspots, always a challenge, is getting more difficult as available manual labor decreases and global temperatures increase.

Peppers are sensitive to weather extremes, she said, and a poorly timed heat wave can ruin a crop.

Underwood now makes his own version of the famous sauce. Instead of a green cap and rooster, Underwood's Dragon Sauce bottles are topped with a black cap and decked with a twisting golden dragon.

Dragon Sauce has seen some early success, finding its way onto the shelves of Costco and provoking a piquant internet debate on how it compares to Huy Fong's current product.

Underwood said he's not surprised Huy Fong has had trouble establishing reliable pepper sources. His farm's own pepper growing practices developed over nearly three decades of slow growth, from an early 50 acres up to a peak of 2,000.

At the height of the Underwood-Huy Fong relationship, the farmer said, the ranch was shipping out 50 loads of peppers a day for 10 weeks in a well-rehearsed annual routine.

"[Huy Fong] has just not rebuilt that structure that we had," Underwood said.

Isaiah Murtaugh covers education for the Ventura County Star in partnership with Report for America. Reach him at isaiah.murtaugh@vcstar.com or 805-437-0236 or follow him on Twitter @isaiahmurtaugh and @vcsschools. Support this work with a tax-deductible donation to Report for America.

Scarcity play...