Let me share a little story with you- one that I hope will shed new light on hot peppers and why you should NOT MESS AROUND. During our trip to Costa Rica my father and I decided to visit a farmer’s market to check out the local produce. One of the farmers was selling big bags of hot peppers, and because he spoke no english, we couldn’t find out what type they were. Figuring the little suckers couldn’t be *that* bad we bought a satchel and carried them home to use in scrambled eggs, salads, etc. No big deal. We never used more than one and never handled the seeds for a long period of time. Fast forward a few days and we realize we still have a lot of peppers left to use. Brilliant idea: stuffed hot peppers! Like jalepeno poppers but the authentic, dangerous, Costa Rican version! Sweet! Oh how wrong we were.
That night I cleaned, de-seeded, cut, and laid out on tin foil the remainder of the peppers. Must have been 30 total. Didn’t have any issues at all while I was doing it. Only after I had finished prepping the peppers did I start to feel the burn. It started under my finger nails and spread over my entire hands and down my arms. Holy. Shit. At first I could handle it, no problem. But the intensity kept picking up and I suddenly found that I was in SERIOUS pain. Panic set in. My father, who had been laughing at me up to that point stopped laughing and started looking for things to help the burn. I had to have him search online because I couldn’t function. I tried everything. First milk, then water, orange juice, cranberry juice, shampoo, and conditioner. I skyped a friend of mine who is a chef and he suggested onions, tomatoes, and toothpaste. Nothing worked. God it was miserable. I sat in the air conditioned room with my hands next to the vent and that helped to dull the tingling by a minute amount. Until they acclimatized and it came back. Fuck, what a nightmare. Never had this happen to me before. You know when I reach for the vodka to pour it over my throbbing fingers that I was at a new low. I tried sand, salt water, mud, butter, weird spanish diaper rash cream and still nothing.
After almost 2 hours we found that the best remedy was a bowl of ice cold water with baking soda. I must have sat for another hour at the dining room table clutching a huge block of ice, just to numb the stinging. Not sure what the baking soda did, but it helped. Then I would alternate with sour cream, literally sticking my hand in the container and putting it back in the fridge when I wasn’t using it to cool it down again. I went to bed in pain and woke up the next morning and THEY WERE STILL STINGING. Damnit. Took another 6 hours that day for the pain to finally stop. Take my advice and wear gloves. But if you are stupid like me, try alternating with baking soda ice water and sour cream. And take this time to think about your stupidity.
