The Chilli Fiesta

On Saturday, me and Rach went to the annual West Dean Chilli Fiesta, somewhere in the wildlands north of Chichester.
It was in the grounds of a lovely old house, who's field I tried to churn up by drifting my car in the car park. (It had acres of fields, I refuse to feel guilty, I barely churned any of it up really, plus I was scared I might get shouted at by an angry Chilli Fiesta attendant)

It is quite an easy event to describe really, imagine a busy, well spaced out market with lots of stalls and stands selling things. Now imagine everything that could possibly be related to chilli in any way shape or form being sold on every single one of those stands. Thats it, you're there.

Among the more random things we saw were Chilli decorated tableware, chilli aloha shirts, and possibly my favourite, womens shoes that looked like chillis.

We bought a fair selection of more normal chilli related products, including chilli sauce, (flamin' nora brand containig the famed bhut jolokia chilli, more on that later) chillis stuffed with cream cheese, olives stuffed with chilli, 2 types of chilli cheese, and some chilli seeds.

This last item I am going to attempt to nurture through the, erm, fertilise-y bit where the shoot comes out, to the growing in a pot bit, through to the, um, harvesting of the chillis and making sphincter looseninlgy hot curries with them.
I bought the seeds from a stall that graded it's products with a letter, denoting how hot the chillis grown from any particular seed would be. M for Mild, H for Hot, VH for Very Hot, and so on.
I bought the seeds that said HHH++ on the packet. hehehe.

The first plant will be called Tim, then any subsequent plants that survive will be called Daisy, Mike, Brian, Marsha, Colin and Twist (cunning link, anyone?). Then one called Satan. After that it is anyone's guess.
As you may be able to tell, I think I have my work cut out for me, a horticulturalist I am not, but how hard can it be? I'll be sure to put up photos of my little darlings as they develop. (or die)

The other interesting thing we saw was a stall run by a guy who had products for sale made from the hottest chillis in the world. Don't quote me on this, but the Bhut Jolokia chilli has a Scoville rating (a measure of the heat of a chilli) of around 1,041,000, whereas your bog standard jar of tabasco sauce has a Scoville rating of around 3,000, making the Jolokia over 300 times hotter than tabasco!
What is even more amazing is that he had concentrated essence of chilli in a little eye-dropper type bottle that had a rating of 5,000,000 scovilles, and he was letting passers by try it by putting three tiny drops onto a piece of cracker and letting them eat it.
The ground around his stalls was actually, genuinely littered with people on their knees, on their backs, stumbling around, just completely reeling from the effects of the stuff.
Hilarious.
I wish I had bought some now, I could take it down the pub with me and spike the snacks. "Crisp, anyone?"