Cumbrian bid for hottest curry title

10:22am Friday 25th July 2008

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A BUNCH OF serious South Cumbrian chilli heads is fighting fire with fire in a bid to be first into the Guinness Book of Records with the world’s hottest curry.

London chef Vivek Singh made national headlines recently when his ‘Bollywood Burner’ – commissioned by Richard Branson’s Virgin Media – was wolfed down on air by chat show host Jonathan Ross.

Now Ged Fowler, Cark-based boss of The Chilli Pepper Company, and Starly’s Spices partners Steven Higginson and Carly Jones, from Orton, have fanned the flames by producing Satan’s Ashes – containing the official hottest chilli in the world – which curry fans can make at home.

Singh’s curry uses the ‘baby’ of the chilli family, the Dorset Naga, which rates at just over 880,000 on the globally-recognised Scoville heat scale.

But Satan’s Ashes not only contains the Naga Morich – 953,721 on the scale – but also the Bhut Jolokia – which has been registered at a whopping 1,001,304 Scoville heat units.

The ‘BJ’ is so hot that Mr Fowler and his employees at The Chilli Pepper Company – the largest stockist of chilli seeds in Europe - have to wear masks and rubber gloves when working with it.

They have now lodged their bid for the ‘world’s hottest’ title with Guinness and will be launching Satan’s Ashes with special tasting sessions at the north of England’s first chilli festival at Levens Hall on August 16 and 17.

For story in full see the July 25 Westmorland Gazette.