Heat proves too much for spice lover Fiona after valiant effort
‘I’M GOOD with spicy food’ – the famous last words that will haunt me forever.
Turning up at Portsmouth’s first ever chilli and gin festival at Fort Purbrook on Sunday felt like every spice lover’s paradise.
With stall upon stall of artisan hot sauces and chillies from all over the world it’s the perfect place to get your fill of fiery flavours.
And while there I was lucky enough to meet the UK’s ‘chilli queen,’ Shahina Waseem.
She has won a record number 90 chilli-eating contests in a row over the past 10 years – with plans to make that 100.
On Sunday, however, she was not competing but was there as a special guest to present a trophy to the winner of a chilli-eating competition to be held later in the day.
Luckily for me, she still had an appetite to try what’s on offer.
After I announced boldly that ‘I’ve not been blown away by anything yet’ she made it her mission to find the hottest sauces on the menu.
We stopped by the Badgers Chilli Kitchen stand – bearing in mind Shahina knows literally every hot sauce trader on site – where we tried their XXX chilli sauce.
It had a bit of a kick but was more tasty than anything.
The owner told us to venture a few stalls down if we wanted a ‘real challenge.’
This led us to the friendly folk from Wiltshire Chilli Farm.
We each tried the god slayer sauce (6.4 million on the scoville scale), followed by the aptly-named regret sauce (12 million).
I was surprisingly OK although Shahina admitted it was pretty hot so I went on solo to try what is dubbed the ‘world’s hottest shot’ made with rum and Carolina Reaper chillies.
This knocked me back several pegs.
But Shahina was impressed and insisted I pushed it further by entering the festival's eagerly anticipated chilli-eating competition.
So that’s how, a while later, I found myself sat in front of an audience with nine others signing a waiver to say I was healthy enough to take part.
The rules state that you must eat the whole chilli, leaving only the stem.
And if at any point you take a sip of milk in front of you or use a bin behind to vomit you are disqualified from the contest.
There are meant to be 10 rounds, with each getting hotter as it goes along.
The first chilli was nothing.
One of my competitors commented that it ‘tastes like grass’ and so we thought we were in for an easy ride.
On to the second round and we were handed what I thought was a large jalapeno each.
This was surprisingly hot and, as I’ve never had an issue with jalapenos before, I started to worry.
However, I found the third and fourth round not so bad although I noticed the man next to me was beginning to struggle.
It was on the fifth round where things really started to go wrong.
One of the judges told us they had lost a large number of competitors the day before.
We all struggled through but then they brought out the dried peppers, which I think (although my memory is perhaps blurred by all the spice) is where we lost our first competitor.
The dried ones were so much worse, having absolutely no moisture to cancel out the spice.
I could feel myself getting the shakes – my whole body felt strangely cold – and my tongue was swollen.
I’m not sure the order of things from there as all I could do was to try not to vomit or pass out – or both.
Along the way I think we lost one or two people but the majority of us were still there at round 10.
I thought ‘this must be the end’ but the judges decided to keep going with more extreme levels of heat.
For round 11 they brought out not one, not two but three dried ghost chillies.
Already I knew this wasn’t good.
Three of my competitors had to drop out during the round, and although I finished all three of mine, after they announce the next round was a helping of deadly Carolina Reaper sauce I had to follow suit.
As the crowd cheers on my name to try to keep me in the game I felt like I was letting them down.
But with my mouth on fire and my stomach churning, I had no choice but to give in to the large glass of milk in front of me and make my exit.
Along with the rest of the crowd I watch on in awe as the remaining competitors kept going, until we were left with two to take part in a final battle to the end.
As one of them was unable to keep going and reached for the sick bucket behind him we hadour champion.
Bradley Scarborough from Gosport took the crown and was presented the trophy by our chilli queen Shahina.
When asked what the toughest moment was, Bradley had the same thought as me.
‘The dried peppers were the worst,’ the 32-year-old said.
‘I knew it was going to be tough getting through those rounds.
‘But it’s an amazing feeling to win today.’
I must say this man definitely deserved the adoration of the festival crowd.
Hats off to Bradley and all the other competitors.
And as for me – humbled before an audience – I’m going to be off the spice for a while.