Brits Showing Growing Appetite For Super Spicy Food

Thu, 05 Aug 2010

 
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A survey carried out by supermarket giant Tesco has revealed that Britons are eating food that is 400 times hotter than what used to be regarded as spicy in the 1960s.

The study found that Brits consume more ultra-hot dishes than any other country in Europe, with sales of spicy food rising by 20 per cent in the last year alone.

Extremely mild curries were considered to be the hottest dishes in the 60s. Such meals scored just 1,920 on the Scoville scale, which is used to measure the heat of chilli peppers.

But since the 1970s, taste buds across the UK have become accustomed to spicy cuisines and sauces such as the 5,000-rated Tabasco sauce, 8,000-rated Mexican food, the 10,500-rated Madras and Vindaloo Indian curries, and 50,000-Scoville Thai dishes .

None of these, however, come close to Dave's Ghost Pepper Sauce, which measures an incredible 800,000 Scovilles – more than double the 350,000 Scoville Jamaican Hot Pepper.

The seriously hot chilli sauce, which went on sale at Tesco today, takes its name from the Bhut Jolakia or Ghost Pepper, which is acknowledged as the hottest chilli pepper in the world.

Tesco table sauces buyer Kathryn Clarke said: "The UK has an undeserved reputation as being a nation of bland food lovers but as these latest statistics show nothing could be further from the truth."

"It seems with every passing decade our taste buds get more acclimatised to the ever hotter food that becomes part of our national cuisine."