shitpocalypse

March 17, 2010 4:47 PM

The Day My Arse Died Two men against the hottest curry known.
posted by cjorgensen (91 comments total)

The Day My Arse Died sounds like the name of a really sad movie.
posted by dunkadunc at 4:55 PM on March 17, 2010 [2 favorites]

Or a really great song.
posted by louche mustachio at 4:59 PM on March 17, 2010

Anyone else find it amusing that one has to be over 14 to read this?
posted by louche mustachio at 5:01 PM on March 17, 2010 [8 favorites]

Since he ruined his arse, it's only appropriate for me to ruin the ending . . .

"I woke up in the wee hours for round 2 of shitpocalypse and almost passed out from the pain in my guts."

Wow. I am so surprised that would happen after eating something called Satan's Ashes.
posted by quadog at 5:02 PM on March 17, 2010 [1 favorite]

Remember, Backdraft isn't just a movie experience, it's also a culinary one.
posted by yeloson at 5:08 PM on March 17, 2010 [2 favorites]

BEER.

I need a job so I can purchase that loverly substance once again.
posted by koeselitz at 5:09 PM on March 17, 2010 [1 favorite]

Looking forward to seeing more posts with the shitpocalypse tag.
posted by rottytooth at 5:09 PM on March 17, 2010 [5 favorites]

He finally stopped when the peppers were making him deaf...

...WHAT?!?!
posted by localroger at 5:09 PM on March 17, 2010 [3 favorites]

After I ate the hottest thing I've ever eaten, I, a guy, made the mistake of going to the bathroom and peeing without first washing my hands. That's a mistake I'm never going to make again.
posted by gurple at 5:10 PM on March 17, 2010 [7 favorites]

Anyone for bhut jolokia pancakes?
posted by metaxa at 5:12 PM on March 17, 2010

This brought tears to my eyes (from laughing, not the peppers). It reminded me of that Texas Chili Contest email that went around a while ago.
posted by nevercalm at 5:19 PM on March 17, 2010 [1 favorite]

After I cooked the hottest thing I've ever cooked, I, a guy, went to the bathroom and washing my hands first didn't help. I had a washcloth soaked in milk on my junk for a couple teary hours.
posted by penduluum at 5:20 PM on March 17, 2010 [2 favorites]

I guess that teaspoon of pepper flakes in the chicken wraps this evening isn't worth posting about, eh?
posted by HuronBob at 5:26 PM on March 17, 2010 [1 favorite]

I ate some spicy tuna rolls from a sketch "generic Asian food" place once and didn't notice anything other than blandness and vague heat at the time. Several hours later, I pissed fire and eventually shat fire. I have no idea what the fuck was concealed in the little dab of "spicy" in the center of each roll, but I suspect it was not intended for human consumption.
posted by Inspector.Gadget at 5:36 PM on March 17, 2010 [4 favorites]

Anyone else find it amusing that one has to be over 14 to read this?
And yet one has to be under 14 to be amused by this.

PARADOX!!

DOUBLE PARADOX!!

[Computer explodes]
posted by drjimmy11 at 5:42 PM on March 17, 2010 [6 favorites]

Wasn't "shitting broken glass" an Anal Cunt song?
posted by molecicco at 5:42 PM on March 17, 2010 [5 favorites]

When I was younger and dumber, I tossed a handful of raw, chopped Scotch bonnets (with the seeds) into a super-hot pan containing oil, a few scraps of garlic, and nothing else. Not a good idea. I basically tear-gassed myself out of my kitchen. It took bout an hour to air the place out, and then I spent an additional 45 minutes or so lying on my back with a cold washrag over my eyes.
posted by palmcorder_yajna at 5:43 PM on March 17, 2010 [11 favorites]

It's not a culinary adventure, though, is it? It's a packet mix in your parent's kitchen. Brown booze out of a can. Does Stewart know how Rob really feels about him?
posted by tigrefacile at 5:45 PM on March 17, 2010 [4 favorites]

The Day My Arse Died sounds like the name of a really sad movie.

"I walk into the bedroom where the clothes I will wear are lying on the bed and my bag lies open and ready. I begin to undress. There is a mirror in this room, a large mirror. I am terribly aware of the mirror.
"My arse's face swings before me like an unexpected lantern on a dark, dark night. Its eyes- its eyes, they glow like a tiger's eyes, they stare straight out, watching the approach of its last enemy, the hair of its cheeks stand up. I cannot read what are in its eyes: if it is terror, then I have never seen terror, if it is anguish, then anguish has never laid hands on me. Now they approach, now the key turns in the lock, now they have it. It cries out once."
posted by Uppity Pigeon #2 at 5:49 PM on March 17, 2010 [2 favorites]

and then I spent an additional 45 minutes or so lying on my back with a cold washrag over my eyes.

While eating what you cooked, right? Please tell me you did. *sigh* I guess you just threw it out.

I once ordered a yummy sounding sandwich from a chaat place in Cary, NC and whilst enjoying it I overheard an Indian guy warn his girlfriend away from what I ordered. The shitpocalypse took place 15 hours later. I'm surprised it didn't register on the a geological scale of some sort.
posted by NoMich at 5:52 PM on March 17, 2010 [2 favorites]

Or a really great song.

I couldn't take one more step
I can't remember if I cried...

But something touched me deep inside
The day my arse died.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 5:54 PM on March 17, 2010 [9 favorites]

I'm stupid AND sexy and even I know enough to jam vaseline up my butt after eating super spicy food. I mean, "as above, so below" isn't just words crocheted on a potholder. It's the law.
posted by stupidsexyFlanders at 6:01 PM on March 17, 2010 [2 favorites]

While eating what you cooked, right? Please tell me you did. *sigh* I guess you just threw it out.

At the point of the tear-gassing, I hadn't yet added any veggies, meat, or the like. (If I'd done so, the peppers' effect probably wouldn't have been nearly as dramatic.) So it wasn't actually a meal yet-- really, it nothing but a small, hot, greasy, chemical weapon.

I don't remember if I had the guts to use the remaining Scotch bonnets when I went back for my second toss at cooking dinner-- though I kind of doubt that I did.
posted by palmcorder_yajna at 6:10 PM on March 17, 2010 [1 favorite]

And yet one has to be under 14 to be amused by this.

I turn 14 next month!

I won't say it was the funniest thing I've ever read, but it amused me enough to go in search of "Satan's Ashes." I can't find a US outlet that carries it (yet).
posted by cjorgensen at 6:15 PM on March 17, 2010

how come spicy stuff feels so good in your mouth and so bad in your butt?
posted by nathancaswell at 6:19 PM on March 17, 2010

It really annoys me when people make syllable-substitutions for comedy effect that dont rhyme or have assonance or really make any kind of sense at all.

Like "Shitmageddon" or "Shitsplosion" or something, although, actually, both of those are better.

The word is clearly Crapocalypse.
posted by Jon Mitchell at 6:24 PM on March 17, 2010 [29 favorites]

What's the blandest thing on the menu?
posted by Abiezer at 6:27 PM on March 17, 2010 [15 favorites]

I grow my own bhut jolokias.

My friends are always careful to check when I invite them over for dinner.
posted by Shadan7 at 6:31 PM on March 17, 2010 [1 favorite]

I'm stupid AND sexy and even I know enough to jam vaseline up my butt after eating super spicy food.

Does that work?

(I need to know...for a friend...yeah)
posted by rollbiz at 6:32 PM on March 17, 2010 [1 favorite]

There's an Indian place here in Atlanta that added a new noun to my family vocabulary: the Rajas. See, my father, being southern, thought he could eat hot food. I, being somewhat more worldly, knew that what he considered hot wouldn't even touch these dishes.

I ordered mild. He ordered hot. Never was I so glad for the second bathroom in our house.
posted by strixus at 6:37 PM on March 17, 2010 [1 favorite]

You can buy ground bhut jolokia from Firehouse Pantry - and in 1 oz. or 4 oz. spice shakers, no less - but I'm personally not a fan of the flavor which is charcoal-like and super hot (!!!) but not much else. The ground habanero is quite good outstanding and I'm just about to order another 4 oz. shaker.
posted by geeyore at 6:49 PM on March 17, 2010 [1 favorite]

Ringpiece. I'm going to have to start saying that a lot more often.
posted by uncleozzy at 6:55 PM on March 17, 2010

Metafilter: feels so good in your mouth and so bad in your butt
posted by stargell at 6:58 PM on March 17, 2010 [11 favorites]

I like spicy foods up to a point, but if the spice is so hot that it obliterates the taste of the food, eating it is pointless.

And don't give me that endorphins argument; clearly these two did not enjoy the benefits of an endorphin rush.

Having hot lava pour out of your butt hardly seems an incentive to man up and eat the hottest thing around.
posted by bwg at 7:04 PM on March 17, 2010 [1 favorite]

This may be my favorite MetaFilter post of 2010 so far.
posted by Joe Beese at 7:04 PM on March 17, 2010 [6 favorites]

the infamous Bhut Jolokia

Huh. Interesting that that word is spelled so similarly to the English. So what does "Jolokia" mean?
posted by madmethods at 7:07 PM on March 17, 2010

I like spicy foods up to a point, but if the spice is so hot that it obliterates the taste of the food, eating it is pointless.

I like to prove my manhood through eating hotter than hot stuff. It's what I do instead of bar fights.

This said, I never have spice obliterate the flavor. I've heard this described as being a super taster, but I can eat the hottest dish and tell you if it has cilantro in it as well (not a fan). I can't think of a meal that has ever had the flavor obliterated. I do tend to like balanced flavors, but over-the-top heat does not mean I can't taste the other flavors. Even something subtle like fish with a splash of lime with shine on through when encrusted with habanero.

I also enjoy seeing though time.
posted by cjorgensen at 7:19 PM on March 17, 2010 [5 favorites]

When I was younger (how many of my comments begin this way?)(too many) I was hanging out with a girlfriend. We were in Greenwich Village in NYC. We both loved spicy food. We were lucky enough to come across a small shop that sold nothing but various hot pepper concoctions.

They had a table with a bunch of open jars, plastic spoons and tortilla chips.

So while chatting with the owner we sampled several of the sauces and enjoyed them all. With the bravado of a couple of young morons, we asked why there wasn't anything "really hot" on the table.

She grinned and said that the really hot stuff (I am not joking) was kept behind the counter.

So she brought out a jar of sauce and warned us to only try a very tiny bit. The friend and I laughed. (This probably sounded like the laugh of a pair of drunks stepping out of a low flying plane over an active volcano, wearing blindfolds)

We both took a chip and dipped it into the jar and scarfed them down.

The next half hour or so are a blur. Some of the screaming was probably mine. No doubt the higher pitched ones.

I got some relief by pounding my head against the walls. The girlfriend got some relief by pounding on me.

I do not know the name of the evil that we consumed that day. But this does not matter. The night was supposed to be spent in lascivious revelry.

Instead it was spent fighting each other for access to the bathroom and howling. We loved each other so much.

Breakfast was milk. Ice cream. And yogurt. There was no oral sex for several days.

Don't ask.
posted by Splunge at 7:59 PM on March 17, 2010 [17 favorites]

The word is clearly Crapocalypse.

When little Sebmojita was having some rectal issues at 6 months old or so, we took to referring to 'Krapatoa' and 'Mount Ve-poovius.'.
posted by Sebmojo at 8:12 PM on March 17, 2010 [5 favorites]

When somebody uses terms like shitpocalypse and shitting broken glass sensation to describe the aftereffects of your product and your response is to send him freebies and link to his post on your own site, that's a spice company I can get behind.

Just stay in front of their customers.
posted by Pirate-Bartender-Zombie-Monkey at 8:22 PM on March 17, 2010 [8 favorites]

I have to admit that I don't see the point of the hotter than hot foods. I mean, I can take anything you want and make it the hottest dish in the world. I don't give a damn what you give me -- curry, chili, ice cream, pudding, steak, lollipops, plain water -- I can just add capsaicin until it is inedibly hot and if you somehow finished it, it would pose a serious risk of death.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 8:22 PM on March 17, 2010

So what does "Jolokia" mean?

It's onomatopoeia.
posted by smoke at 8:25 PM on March 17, 2010 [2 favorites]

Back to the vaseline trick -- my concern would be that you would somehow end up trapping the offending substance against the delicate tissues, and then you wouldn't be able to end the burn without removing all traces of vaseline, which is near-impossible.

Please, enlighten us further on your personal experiences with this maneuver (kthx).
posted by palliser at 9:06 PM on March 17, 2010

Seated at his usual table, Keith ate poppadams and bombay duck while the staff fondly prepared his mutton vindaloo. "The napalm sauce, sir?" asked Rashid. Keith was resolved, in this as in all things. "Yeah. The napalm sauce." In the kitchen they were busy responding to Keith's imperial challenge: to make a curry so hot that he couldn't eat it. The meal arrived. Lively but silent faces stared through the serving-hatch. The first spoonful swiped a mustache of sweat on to Keith's upper lip, and drew excited murmurs from the kitchen. "Bit mild" said Keith when he could talk again.

...
Then his [different] meal arrived. Three additional waiters and two smocked cooks stood and watched, murmuring excitedly among themselves. The murmuring ceased, on the instant, as the first spoonful of sauce entered Keith's mouth, and then you could hear through the hatch an explosion of adolescent laughter--from the boys in hell's kitchen...He chewed, then stopped chewing, then chewed again, exploratively, like a puppy testing a hard chocolate. When, at last, he started to speak, there was so much smoke coming out of his mouth Nicola though for a moment that he must have quietly lit another cigarette. Keith asked Ackbar to correct him if he was wrong but didn't he ask for the hot one?

posted by kirkaracha at 9:12 PM on March 17, 2010 [1 favorite]

This Is Just To Say

I have eaten
the bag of Satan's Ashes
that was in
the cupboard

and which
you were probably
saving for
shits and giggles (mostly shits)

Forgive me
I am in the bathroom
attempting to get Beelzebub
out of my ass
posted by HP LaserJet P10006 at 9:19 PM on March 17, 2010 [26 favorites]

I have to admit that I don't see the point of the hotter than hot foods. I mean, I can take anything you want and make it the hottest dish in the world. I don't give a damn what you give me -- curry, chili, ice cream, pudding, steak, lollipops, plain water -- I can just add capsaicin until it is inedibly hot and if you somehow finished it, it would pose a serious risk of death.

The funny thing about capsaicin and its analogues is that you build up a tolerance for them, so no two people really experience dishes as having the same heat. What is intolerably hot for my seven year old is ok for my ten year old; what is intolerably hot for him is OK for my wife; what is intolerably hot for her is OK for me, and so on.

The corollary of this is that hot food is most fun when it's playing with the envelope of what you're accustomed to. It's that borderline between intense and unbearable where all the good things happen. But it's a moving target, and it moves rather quickly if you eat a lot of hot food.

You're absolutely right that you can always just dump in enough capsaicin to make something inedible for any particular person, where it literally becomes like tear gas, but it's really hard to make any even remotely hard and fast rules about what's hot and what isn't for any particular person, without knowing what they're used to.
posted by unSane at 9:41 PM on March 17, 2010 [3 favorites]

Many years ago, I was upriver in The Gambia and was offered a meal by a nice young Senegalese chap. It was lovely, but as I started to eat what looked like a peeled plum tomato, he warned me that it was very hot. It was. To this day, it remains the hottest thing I have ever eaten, and that includes a period in my life when I had madras for breakfast.

I wept for about 20 minutes, but it had the most remarkable effect, it felt cleansing, almost purifying.

The next morning, on the 6 hour flight home, it left, in the manner of its arrival. My idea of Hell is to be stuck in an aircraft toilet having a fire enema at 30,000 feet.
posted by quarsan at 10:06 PM on March 17, 2010 [10 favorites]

I tend towards the really (intolerably, as far as my friends are concerned) hot end of things, but have never experienced the "as above so below" things on my, um, particular end. Is it really like that for some people? I've always heard people laughing about it and have always had people asking me about it, but is it really that serious? I always just thought it was more like a joke that just kept on going.
posted by nevercalm at 10:18 PM on March 17, 2010 [1 favorite]

If you want a more extreme version of this, read the unplanned sequel, in which they eat the world's hottest curry and then go bathing in the Dead Sea.
posted by MuffinMan at 10:23 PM on March 17, 2010

Nevercalm: Oh, it's true.
posted by valrus at 10:33 PM on March 17, 2010

I recently went to a birthday party hosted by a local metal band where the birthday boy received, as a gift from a roommate, 15 lbs of bacon. Another roommate made a medium pot of chili out of beans, tomatoes, some of the aforementioned bacon, and a bhut jolokia pepper.

Watching metalheads eat the chili, cry, and then try to unsuccessfully chase away the pain with yet another Rainier beer while screaming along to Manowar will remain one of the best memories of the year. One guy just kept on slurring 'It's really hot! But I can't stop eating! But it's really hot! But I can't stop eating!' while his face turned beet red and tears streamed down his cheeks.

It was REALLY good chili!
posted by spinifex23 at 11:41 PM on March 17, 2010 [3 favorites]

And now, a haiku:

O, Satan's Ashes
worse than the hottest summer
The anus trembles
posted by bwg at 11:47 PM on March 17, 2010 [2 favorites]

and then go bathing in the Dead Sea

riding an old suspension-less truck through the rocky countryside both to get there and back!

(More seriously, I always wonder why would you wish to subject yourself to the "building resistance" torture. The only time I tried something not officially described as mild in the curry menu, my digestion was so nuked for several days that I considered crawling my mortal remains to a hospital to see if my stomach had dissolved.)
posted by Iosephus at 11:54 PM on March 17, 2010

So what does "Jolokia" mean?

It's Assamese for "wire brush and Dettol".
posted by flabdablet at 12:10 AM on March 18, 2010 [2 favorites]

Poo jokes never get old.

Ever.
posted by effugas at 12:32 AM on March 18, 2010 [1 favorite]

You think you've had spicy hot pot, until you go to Chengdu and have spicy hot pot.

The next morning involved several hours of what I imagine labor pains to feel like. And I will never forget the ringsting as long as I live
posted by moorooka at 2:05 AM on March 18, 2010

NOM NOM CHENGDU HOTPOT. Oh man, I miss those delicious days of pain and burning. Also those little spicy eggplant-onna-stickses.
posted by elizardbits at 3:20 AM on March 18, 2010

until you go to Chengdu
Chongqing, surely?! It's all the fog - you need something spicy to clear the phlegm.
posted by Abiezer at 3:47 AM on March 18, 2010

Oh, man, Chongqing hotpot. I'd never experienced the Burning Ring of Fire until the first time I tried Chongqing hotpot.
posted by bokane at 4:12 AM on March 18, 2010

The Phall, which he mentions, is on the menu of a lot of curry houses in the UK, although less so in the girly South, where I live. Like most curry house curries it's got no real Indian forebear, it's just something they made up for silly drunken sods who want the hottest thing on the menu and think the vindaloo isn't manly enough.

And silly sods we are. If there was ever an accurate survey I think we'd all be amazed at the proportion of UK men who have willingly submitted themselves to a phaal, just for the hell of it.

I had two when I was a student, with friends, on the basis that just the once wasn't really a good test of one's mettle. The real test was to know what you were letting yourself in for and to do it again another day. Satan does indeed unleash his army of fiery imps on one's bunghole.

I can only begin to imagine what this felt like. Good lad, though. Some curry houses have a hall of fame if you finish a phall in the restaurant. He deserves a statue.
posted by dowcrag at 5:02 AM on March 18, 2010

My wife's AskMe about Naga Jolokia/Ghost Pepper. Since then I've used them pretty extensively. They are great addition to the pantry for people who like hot foods. The main thing I like about them is that a very small amount can make food very hot without effecting the flavor much. But dumping a bunch of them in chili or a curry is great too.

It's just a hot pepper. If you don't like hot peppers, don't eat them. This seems simple to me.

As to the idea that it's silly to make food insanely hot as it eradicates the rest of the flavor, you only hear this from people who don't like insanely hot food. If you like really hot food and eat it regularly the "insane" heat is just another element of flavor. If that element is something you don't want to experience, just like cilantro or garlic or fish sauce or broccoli, feel free to have less varied eating options.

If you never eat garlic, a normal amount of garlic in something will overpower the other flavors. Same with any strong flavor. The difference with hot peppers is that they had tremendously to the eating *experience* without having a huge impact on the flavor. For me it's like the difference between eating a steak right off the grill, and eating a grilled steak that's been in the fridge over night.
posted by y6y6y6 at 5:36 AM on March 18, 2010

I once tucked into a vindaloo in one of the tiny 4th Street Indian restaurants in NYC that is still the hottest thing I've ever eaten. I remember feeling a little weird about a third of the way into it, then the house lights went down and colored lights started flashing for a birthday moment, and the combination of the lights and spice basically caused me to hallucinate. i remember a rushing in my ears and my vision sort of doubling, so I jumped up and ran into the street and waited outside until I could breathe again, so I can totally see how this guy's friend might have gone temporarily deaf from his pepper experience!
posted by kittyloop at 5:52 AM on March 18, 2010 [1 favorite]

Mix this with some Olean and good times are a plenty.
posted by stormpooper at 6:16 AM on March 18, 2010 [1 favorite]

this mostly tastes (in Stewart's words) "of pain."

This is 50% Ralph Wiggum and 100% awesome.
posted by tommasz at 6:25 AM on March 18, 2010 [2 favorites]

my brother once pulled out a bottle of 'dried hot spice mix'. It looked like one of the plastic $1.00 spice bottles you get in the grocery but had no label. He claimed that he & a friend grew and dried the peppers then ground them into this mysterious spice mix.

It smelled hot & evil so I warily tried just 3 grains of the stuff although I have a pretty high tolerance for spicy foods.

Oh dear god the pain started on that one part of my tongue and spread throughout my mouth and then went outwards. After 2 or so hours, the pain had shrunk back to that one part of my tongue and am convinced it burned off some of my taste buds. I lisped for 3 days.

I have my doubts as to the origins the stuff and I'm not convinced the bro didn't pull a bait & switch with the bottle especially after I watched him *liberally* sprinkle it onto a hamburger and eat it without any problems. My mother was right about that boy -- no sense no feeling.
(he once walked 2 miles on a leg broken both above and below the knee)
posted by jaimystery at 6:54 AM on March 18, 2010 [1 favorite]

....but have never experienced the "as above so below" things on my, um, particular end.

Glad I'm not the only one. I too have never understood this, and always thought it was just a joke based on how much it hurt to eat. I figured the capsaicin was broken down by the stomach, but perhaps not for everybody?
posted by opsin at 7:42 AM on March 18, 2010

it's really hard to make any even remotely hard and fast rules about what's hot and what isn't for any particular person, without knowing what they're used to.

I figure that if you go past the LD50, you're good. Which would be about 5 grams for a 100kg person. Well, a 100kg rat, strictly.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 7:49 AM on March 18, 2010

No, honestly I have not tried the vaseline thing. As penance I will link to the crowdsourced authority on all things poopy.
posted by stupidsexyFlanders at 7:49 AM on March 18, 2010

I have a spicy poo story.

A couple years ago, I went to an Indian restaurant for dinner with a bunch of friends. I ordered some sort of tuna skewer, which was spicy but not overwhelming. It was quite a lot of food, so I took about half of it home with me in a doggy bag.

About halfway home the discomfort began. It was that familiar sensation that feels like your stomach is trying to contract into a singularity and the cold sweats break out. I knew that I had to reach a bathroom, and soon. Every red light was torture, and every pothole threatened to loose scatological hell upon my car seats.

After several moving violations, I make it back to my apartment building to find no parking available on the street. I did a quick lap around the block and then decided to double park in front of the building. I race inside... and the elevator is busted. Ever so carefully, I goosestepped up five flights of stairs, raced into my apartment and promptly had the worst 25 minutes of my life.

After that experience, I managed to hold myself together long enough to repark my car, and then spent the next three hours in and out of the bathroom.

The next day I ate the leftovers to test for repeatability. (Seriously, I looked at the food and thought "I wonder if that will happen again...")

I still have not returned to that restaurant.
posted by backseatpilot at 8:47 AM on March 18, 2010 [1 favorite]

My friend introduced me to the term sting-ring to describe the 'down below' feeling.
posted by daHIFI at 8:48 AM on March 18, 2010 [1 favorite]

So if this thread boils down to 'my favorite pepper story', here's how peppers actually screwed up my sexual fantasy dream night.

Many, many years ago I - in the days I was young and badass - I went for a short trip to Prague. On the first night I went to a bar across the hotel and met Eva, a total stunner even for Czech standards. We hit it off and we ended up in her place, where she screwed the living shit out of me. We exchanged phone numbers and she wished me a good holiday. Two nights later, I went to the same bar to challenge the odds. As stories like this have it, a girl walks up to me and about an hour later, this Irina girl - god she was gorgeous - is going all reverse cowgirl on me, across the street, five stories up. She stayed a very long night and the next morning I had to hurry to get to the station. A great holiday and that was that.

About half a year later I got a call from Irina. She was going to London and wanted to stop over in Amsterdam. Could she stay over for one night? So I pretended to be casual about it, flipped through an empty diary for a minute and then said "Well, I see next Friday is entirely possible, so please be welcome, shall I pick you up at the station?" "Ok, she said, hope it's not a problem, I will bring my friend?"

Djeezus, this looked like a serious can-I-bring-my-friend-situation. I felt like the sucker that is born every minute. The reverse cowgirl was bulk erased from my mind immediately and all of sudden I'm thinking of a guy with a big fur coat and a droopy mustache named Wodek. He works in the mines and eats small children for breakfast which he washes away with liters of beer. He will probably kill me while I'm asleep.

"Maybe you remember my friend, you two met at the bar." I really couldn't remember anything from that night apart from the hotel room. "Hi there, this is Eva! Are you surprised?" I couldn't believe what was going on an the other end of the phone. It turned out both were good friends (really good, as it turned out) and Eva had told Irina about our night. She also told I was hanging out in that bar and that I was an easy pickup. We talked a bit more over the phone and after some joking around, it appeared that the girls shared the bed on more than one occasion. As a matter of fact they were sharing the bed as we spoke and they hoped to be in Amsterdam to share the bed with me too.

It took about half a day before I could wrap my mind around that proposal. As a guy, the first thing you think is: what are the odds? This seems impossible. This is being hit by lightning while you win the lottery. (yes girls, it's really that difficult for a guy) I even went back home to check the phone if this call actually took place. It did and it was Wednesday. I decided to hit the bars to make sure I was knocked out deep into the next day, otherwise the wait would have been unbearable. Luckily they called to confirm their flight, so it was true...

Of course the flight was delayed, but they arrived around 4 and they told me they were starving. Also they wanted to have something 'Dutch' to eat. Well, Dutch food is definitely not worth the trip, but I had a great Indonesian place around the corner and it's next to impossible to find an Indo restaurant outside Indonesia and Holland. It was a bit awkward in the beginning to meet each other like this, but the conversation picked up and before we knew it we were discussing kinks like they were Dr. Ruth's horny sisters trapped inside a body of a supermodel. At the same time they kept ordering food and they were eating like nothing I've seen before. Hot? Yes, but when it became too spicy, the ate some krupuk or drank some beer. I especially ordered the mild dishes. This evening turned out like my own private "girls gone wild" episode.

Right after the meal, I took them through the canals and while we walked to my boat. Eva took my hand and whispered all sorts of hardcore kinky trash in my right ear. Irina walked on the other side took my arm and kissed me on the cheeck. God, they looked gorgeous. This was probably going to be the shortest fuckin' boat ride in the history of mankind. We went through the canal and after about twenty minutes, while we were waiting under the bridge for other boats to pass, Irina kissed me, while Eva started looking pale. "Can we go home? I don't feel too well." It was a strange, quiet ride back. Eva really had something serious going on.

When we arrived at home, Eva went immediately for the toilet. I heard her crying, I heard sounds that vaguely reminded me of a woman in labour, I heard vomiting, heavy breathing through the nose, intense, really intense hurling. I probably heard her saying the czech equivalent of "please god no more, can't you see that already you emptied out everything", and "What is this, I never ate something green." As a guy, this is what you think in a situation like this: ok, one down, one to go. And a foul mouthing gorgeous one also. And Eva can join us later, when she regained her vim. As a host, I hold no grudge, because that is the kind of guy I am. I sincerely promised myself to save some for Eva, but I thought it would be bad manners to tell her. She wouldn't hear it anyway, as I heard the next episode was kick started.

All this toilet business took about twenty minutes and Irina already went to the bedroom to unpack. I took a bottle of great wine from the fridge, took three glasses - listened to the toilet and put one glass back - and went to the bedroom. Irina was on the bed alright, but hardly in the way I expected. The scene I saw, is something I think about when I picture myself in a home for the demented, many years from now, but three days after the employees started their strike. The only difference might have been the aforementioned kink-related paraphernalia that were spread around her on the bed like a halo of evil. It was horrible beyond painful, it was like she was knocked out. It was easy to establish that no orifice had been left unexplored. With the benefit of hindsight I think it was a bad call from her to be dressed in white that day. Luckily, she regained consciousness and she spent hours in the shower.

So instead of enjoying being in heat, I spent the night cleaning the walls of my bedroom, my carpet (Hagerty!), my shower and my toilet, not to mention two laundry cycles. The girls woke up completely wasted and I brought them to the airport. There wasn't much talking going on, they felt lucky they managed to open their eyes and made it in time to catch their plane. Their faces were all red and a bit puffy. The only thing Irina said about it was: "This is the first time we ate food with a lot of pepper" and Eva said: "and certainly my last." And it must have been the pepper, because I ate the same and didn't notice a thing.

And this my dear mefites is my story how a dish with peppers was responsible for a night of sad and quiet masturbation.
posted by ouke at 9:38 AM on March 18, 2010 [30 favorites]

And this my dear mefites is my story how a dish with peppers was responsible for a night of sad and quiet masturbation.

This is the only thing that I noticed. Sorry but you can't put sad and quiet masterbation into the same sentence. It's not physically possible. Turn that frown upside down, my friend. :)
posted by stormpooper at 9:54 AM on March 18, 2010

I've had a Phaal several times, and although one's mouth gets used to the heat over repeat sittings, one's stomach and aft pathway never build up a tolerance. I do enjoy Phaals - as well as being hot, they're really rich and flavoursome - but it's impossible to order one without being accused of showboating. They're quite rare down here in the South. I'd say a Chili Massala is hotter than a Phaal though, and much more common, but to me, it just tastes like gravy mixed with acid. It's definitely easy to make something ridiculously hot, but far harder to make something so tasty, you'll eat it even as you weep blood. Restaurants that offer such a dichotomous bounty are few and far between.
posted by RokkitNite at 9:58 AM on March 18, 2010

Actually, on a serious note?

I like vindaloo -- but only at restaurants who use the actual Goan recipe.

See, before it became British curry-shop code for "the hottest thing in the house" -- before it was superseded by the phaal -- the vindaloo was a Goan dish, tailored from an earlier Portuguese dish.

It's basically pork. Marinated overnight in wine to bring out the flavour. It's spicy, but not stupidly hot -- more like a middle-of-the-range bhuna. And the flavour is to die for.

(A thousand curses on the idiots who turned vindaloo into a synonym for third degree burns of the mouth!)
posted by cstross at 11:01 AM on March 18, 2010

I'm going to paraphrase my dearly departed dad here:

After eating a really spicy [curry], there's only one choice for dessert: ice cream.

Why ice cream, you ask?

Because tomorrow when you're sitting on the toilet, going through the [curry], you'll be saying "Come on, ice cream!"
posted by owtytrof at 1:08 PM on March 18, 2010 [4 favorites]

A possible explanation- I've only had so below as above once in my life- my first attempt at spicy sesame noodles. I didn't put in any cayenne (now a crucial ingredient) but instead just kept dumping more and more mongolian fire oil and spicy sesame oil into the sauce until it had a good kick.

I swear I saw the same oil floating in the toilet the next day. At least that's what it looked like through the tears of pain. So my guess is that if there's a great deal of oil in there that doesn't fully get digested and broken down, well, capsicum likes oil.

Also, on a tangent- horseradish spiciness is a completely different beast from capsicum. Learned that one the hard way.
posted by Hactar at 3:33 PM on March 18, 2010

Metafilter: I have a spicy poo story.
posted by MiltonRandKalman at 3:37 PM on March 18, 2010

Accepting a $10 bet on my 21st birthday that I wouldn't chug the entire pot of chili sauce was poor judgment on my part.

That is all.
posted by flabdablet at 3:57 PM on March 18, 2010

As a wedding present, my husband and I got this condiment. This terrifying, terrifying condiment.

It's in a jar shaped like a cobra with red crystal eyes. Our friend tells us he got it in the remaindered gourmet stuff aisle at Mervyn's. Any labels or product info it had were gone long before we got it.

I, loving hot food, tried a bit of it as soon as we got it home-- about a fingernail's worth. It was pure agony. It took me about an hour to recover, and for me, that's really bizarre. I'm kind of an asbestos mouth. Like a dumbass, soon after that, I tried to use a little bit of it in a stir-fry. Again, about a quarter of a teaspoon managed to irradiate the entire meal. I was able to eat about half of mine. My husband made it through about four bites.

It's been nearly a decade, but we still have the condiment-of-nightmares. We never open it. I guess you could describe it as a kind of household god. It just squats in companionable malevolence in the back of our fridge, staring down our salad dressing with glittering eyes.
posted by palmcorder_yajna at 4:27 PM on March 18, 2010 [12 favorites]

MetaFilter: the anus trembles
posted by bwg at 5:04 PM on March 18, 2010

Ah, the old speckled hen.
posted by crunch42 at 12:37 AM on March 19, 2010 [1 favorite]

MetaFilter: What is this, I never ate something green.
posted by obiwanwasabi at 12:43 AM on March 19, 2010 [1 favorite]

So what does "Jolokia" mean?

wikipedia

The Assamese word "jolokia" simply means the Capsicum pepper. ("Bhot" meaning "of Bhotiya origin", or something that has come from the hills of adjoining Bhutan)


I was expecting it to mean "the heat of a thousand suns will explode from your anus if you eat this" or "dear God make it stop I'll do anything you ask" or something.
posted by magstheaxe at 9:25 AM on March 19, 2010 [1 favorite]

My partner and I went out to an Indian restaurant with my aunt and uncle while visiting them out in Indiana. When ordering "Mild, medium, or hot" a FOURTH mysterious "Indian hot" option was added. My partner, being the kind of guy who puts hot sauce on his jalapeno peppers as he eats them out of the jar, ordered "Indian hot." My uncle joked that he'd want to take a bucket of ice with him to the bathroom the next day.

He didn't get the joke and asked me to explain it for him. He laughed a bit, but there's another ongoing joke that he doesn't poop, which superceded the "bucket of ice" joke. Seriously. This guy goes to extreme lengths to make his bathroom activities covert. He likes to deny the existence of his large intestine entirely, mostly by running the shower while he poops and then taking a shower directly afterwards - the sound of the running water confusing bystanders into thinking that he's in the shower the whole time. It's a colossal waste of water, but damned if I'm going to be able to shatter that particular neurosis.

The next day, he came to me and told me that he had to tell me something that we could never speak of again. He'd wished he'd had the ice. He said the pain was so bad that he was sweating and necessitated a second shower. (Apparently, this took more than one "go" to get the job done.)

It's the only time I've ever heard the man confess to pooping in any context.
posted by grapefruitmoon at 11:38 AM on March 19, 2010 [2 favorites]

It's been nearly a decade, but we still have the condiment-of-nightmares. We never open it. I guess you could describe it as a kind of household god. It just squats in companionable malevolence in the back of our fridge, staring down our salad dressing with glittering eyes.

Could we get a photo of this nightmare condiment? Please? *bats glittering eyes* Because now I want to track it down and buy some.
posted by spinifex23 at 1:18 PM on March 20, 2010

Has anyone else here blown a line of powdered wasabi?

Because I did.
posted by dunkadunc at 2:20 PM on March 20, 2010

Is it something you're likely to do again?
posted by flabdablet at 6:05 PM on March 20, 2010

It didn't burn like I expected it to, but that may have something to do with staleness.

I'm way too old to try doing that sort of thing again, though.
posted by dunkadunc at 6:07 PM on March 20, 2010

Could we get a photo of this nightmare condiment? Please? *bats glittering eyes* Because now I want to track it down and buy some.

Inspired by this thread, I googled around a bit and figured out what it is. It's this. Or rather, it was that. After learning that one of its ingredients was oil of capsaicin, we decided that we didn't need it in the house anymore. (It was stoppered with a cork, which looked to be breaking down. A containment breach seemed eminent.)

We wanted to save the bottle, so I with grave heart, I undertook the task of sauce disposal. To do this, I wore rubber gloves and a pair of lab goggles. The gloves were adequate; the goggles somewhat less so. Once about three tablespoons of the sauce were out of the bottle and in the sink, an invisible, scouring mist came up that made me choke and tear, and the goggles fogged up like crazy. I managed to get about 2/3 of the sauce out between coughing spasms; then I remembered that we had dust masks. N95 mask + goggles + gloves = mission accomplished, though I did have to sack out on the sofa for a little bit afterward to let my mucous membranes calm down, and I felt slightly crappy for the rest of the night.

I am really, really not a wimp about hot food. A couple of weeks ago, at a party, a colleague gave me a fresh-picked bhot jolokia to try, and I found it lovely. (Though granted, I hear that the stuff is far less potent before it's dried, and I ate the pepper from the tip up, in teensy nibbles, while carefully avoiding the seeds.) The cobra sauce was not food. It was a freaking toxic scourge. In fact, I found myself feeling guilty for washing it down the sink-- like maybe it should have gone in an organic contaminants jug in a fume hood, somewhere.
posted by palmcorder_yajna at 7:39 PM on March 20, 2010

Has anyone else here blown a line of powdered wasabi?

Because I did.

Duncadunc, did you ever live in Ann Arbor? I used to know a bunch of folks there who threw a yearly party on Aleister Crowley's birthday, and celebrated with a banquet of the hottest foods they could stomach. The last one I went to, when everyone was good and laquered, the wasabi toots began. I'm pretty sure I did it, because when I was in my early twenties, I wouldn't have been able to not do it. (The butchest/stupidest of boys were all standing around in a circle with the horseradish while the girls stood back, squealing in horror. In situations like that, I always felt like I had to prove to the world that WOMEN CAN BE JUST AS STUPID AS ANYONE, GODDAMN IT.) I don't, however, remember anything how it might have felt. I probably have Guiness to thank for that.

In the words of the wise an illuminated Homer Simpson: "Ah beer. The cause, and the solution, to all life's problems."
posted by palmcorder_yajna at 7:50 PM on March 20, 2010

Chilli grenade
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 11:47 AM on March 25, 2010