{"id":1469,"date":"2010-03-09T01:26:48","date_gmt":"2010-03-08T16:26:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/2010-03-09\/1469"},"modified":"2010-03-09T01:26:48","modified_gmt":"2010-03-08T16:26:48","slug":"most-evil-snack-boukun-habanero","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/2010-03-09\/1469","title":{"rendered":"Most Evil Snack: Boukun Habanero"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n
\nNOTE<\/b>: Images with an icon next to them have been artificially shrunk to better fit your screen; click the icon to restore them, in place, to their regular size.\n<\/div>\n\n\n

I like some kinds of spicy food, such as things with wasabi<\/a> (a powerful<\/span>\nhorseradish-esque garnish) and kimchi<\/a> (Korean spicy\npickled veggies), but when incorporated into snacks in Japan, such as kakipi<\/a>, these spicy\ntastes get toned way<\/i> down, to a bland,<\/span> pedestrian level.<\/p>\n\n

<\/a><\/div>

So this\nevening at the convenience store I saw<\/span> a corn<\/span>-chip snack with packaging\nthat lent the feeling of “spicy” (as you can see at right), I didn't<\/span> pay\nmuch attention to what was written on it and threw it into my shopping\nbasket.<\/p>\n\n

I should have paid attention.<\/p>\n\n

The name of the product is boukun habanero<\/i> (\u66b4\u541b<\/span>\u30cf\u30d0\u30cd\u30ed) and\ntranslates to “tyrant habanero”. I guess<\/span> having paid attention wouldn't\nhave mattered because I didn't<\/span> know what a habanero<\/a> is, but according\nto Wikipedia it's 12 to 140 times more spicy than jalapeno, approaching the\nlevel of “law-enforcement grade pepper spray”.<\/p>\n\n

Anyway, oblivious to all that earlier this evening, happy to be over my\ncolds and to have gotten my taxes finally finished, I cracked<\/span> open a beer<\/span>\nand opened the bag and started munching. To my surprise<\/span>, they were not\nbland nor pedestrian, but really freakin' spicy!<\/b>. Perhaps more hot\nthan what I might<\/span> normally like, but encouraged to find a tangy<\/span> snack, I continued<\/span> munching.<\/p>\n\n

Even more surprising was that a few<\/span> seconds after I finished<\/span> munching\nand put the bag aside, the in-mouth spice level shot from\n\n“really really<\/i> spicy” \n\nto such a molten<\/span> level of pain that I suddenly<\/span> found myself wanting to eat\nmy own eyeballs, or anything else with any appreciable amount of moisture\nin hopes for some relief. Running to the kitchen, forcing myself not to be\na wimp<\/span> and actually cry, I frantically<\/span> clawed\nopen a tub<\/span> of vanilla ice cream to douse the inferno. (I know<\/span> enough not to\nuse a water<\/span>-based liquid, because pepper oils are generally not water\nsoluble, so water has little effect but to slosh the pain to new\nareas.)<\/p>\n\n

Once I regained my sight and motor coordination, I looked<\/span> at the package\nmore carefully. I had to<\/span> look up one of the characters in the yellow\nstar-burst phrase over the product name.... the phrase means “most\nevil<\/b>”. No kidding!<\/p>\n\n

So I search on the web and find that this is the most, well, evil<\/i> of\na whole<\/span> line of “tyrant habanero” products....<\/p>\n\n

<\/a><\/div>\n\n

Notice how all the other products have images of cute friendly peppers\non them (even the two spicy chocolate bars). They're really really really \nspicy, but kid's play compared to the pure evil of “most evil”.<\/p>\n\n

I'd never heard of this line of products before, but it has its own web site<\/a>, its own blog<\/a>, and even its own movie<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n

This was definitely the most memorable snacking experience since the garlic snack of death<\/a>\nfour years ago.<\/p>\n\n

In the end the spice inferno was only superficial... the vanilla ice cream\ntook care of it in short order. Then I finished<\/span> my beer.<\/p>\n\n

Burp.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I like some kinds of spicy food, such as things with wasabi (a powerful horseradish-esque garnish) and kimchi (Korean spicy pickled veggies), but when incorporated into snacks in Japan, such as kakipi, these spicy tastes get toned way down, to a bland, pedestrian level.<\/p>

So this evening at the convenience store I saw a corn-chip snack with packaging that lent the feeling of \"spicy\" (as you can see at right), I didn't pay much attention to what was written on it and threw it into my shopping basket.<\/p>

I should have paid attention.<\/p>

The name of the product is boukun [...]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1469"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1469"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1469\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1469"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1469"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1469"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}