The Anatomy of Inferno

THE END was just the middle

However you interpreted ‘inferno’ is exactly how I meant it. No pun intended, but I mean it in two ways: first, as a literal measurement on the Scoville scale; and second, as a complete emotional hell: something sharp enough to cut through the noise and force me to be present.

I’ve had an affinity for spicy things for as long as I can remember. My earliest “spicy” memory is from 6th grade, right at the start of a strange cultural boom. It was the peak era of diet culture. My peers were all on diets, but their parents still packed them lunches: platinum-level greatness in my eyes. Meanwhile, a bunch of us were stuck with the “disgusting” healthy lunches: the kind that would come home uneaten, making our parents wonder what we were eating.

I used my babysitting money to buy two jars of pepperoncinis a day and used them as currency in the lunchroom economy. Two to three pepperoncinis were worth a sandwich and a snack. The marketing of this era caught on to this shift. Suddenly, the commercial world was exploding with Carolina Reaper chips and viral challenges, treating a spicy snack like a world-record novelty. I started to go after those spicy snacks myself, not to trade for sandwiches anymore but maybe for friendships, lol.

I had a friend whose uncle owned a candy store in Brooklyn, and she would always bring the coolest stuff to school. One day, she brought these ‘Red 40’ dyed cheese curls that were Ghost Pepper spicy. She had an entire closet at home filled with junk food from her uncle, and looking back at our ten-year friendship, I sometimes wonder: was I more interested in the closet of junk, or the friendship itself?

My last interaction with eating a hot pepper was only a few years ago. It proved that most people still don’t understand the difference between a “novelty” and a real affinity. My coworkers thought a habanero was the peak of intensity. I showed up with a Trinidad Scorpion and a pair of gloves. When I ate it raw, they realized I wasn’t performing, I wasn’t flirting, and I wasn’t making small talk. While I stayed present in the ‘inferno’ they were there for a spectacle: they cried and were in a panic, but I came prepared with milk and bread.

When I look deeply at my relationship with spicy, I see it through three paths: emotional, psychological, and physical. These correlate directly to feeling stifled, masking and actual pain.

What’s fascinating is how a hot pepper combats each of these:

• The Mask: You can’t wear a mask when your face is flushed and sweating.

• The Stifle: That ‘stifled’ feeling we carry mentally becomes a tangible, physical sensation of heat.

• The Release: Because you cry, you are no longer repressing your emotions. You are finally allowed to feel the pain, sometimes literal referred pain if you overdid it. And I have definitely been there. There’s nothing quite like feeling on top of the world enjoying some spicy chips, only to find yourself two hours later lying on the cold cement in extreme kidney pain, feeling like you are actually dying, lol. The cement was the only surface that could meet me where I was.

As a “yardner” and a community plot gardener, I’ve learned that the plant’s heat is a mirror of its environment. The plant creates capsaicin oils as a defense mechanism when it’s under stress, specifically when you don’t water it. I’ve had Scorpion hybrids, Ghosts, and Reapers turn sweet on me because I cared for them like my other temperate needy fruits. To get that 700,000 to 2,500,000 Scoville Heat Units (SHU), the plant needs to feel the constraint of the soil; it needs to adapt to survive. Some perspective: When eating a Reaper you are hovering between Human Pepper Spray (⁓2 million SHU) and Bear Spray (⁓3 million SHU).

The evolution of the plant is interesting. Other creatures avoid these fruits because the heat is a deterrent like lectins or saponins. I pose this question to you: When you crave spicy food, what is actually going on in your life?

Is it the flavor you are after or are you looking for a way to feel alive?