The Arizona Taco Festival Hot Chili Pepper Eating Contest

​The average person's stomach can hold about a liter of food, or close to two pounds' worth. But who wants to be average? All over town, restaurants are offering up contests of confection, defying brave eaters to ingest more food than they should eat in a week -- daily recommended values be damned!

Armed with a big mouth and an empty stomach, our intrepid writer Zach Fowle has dared to become one of these food fighters -- travelling metro Phoenix to face new challenges and prove to the animal kingdom that man belongs at the top of the food chain.

The first-ever Arizona Taco Festival was held this weekend, and it was everything I dreamed it could be. The tacos were decadent, the Luchadores were energetic, the tequila flowed like wine. Under the hot and cloudless sky amidst the grounds of the Scottsdale Waterfront, throngs of patrons enjoyed interacting with local chefs, watching margarita-making competitions and beating the crap out of piñatas.

But the premier event (as far as I'm concerned) is the Hot Chili Pepper Eating Contest. I've been looking forward to this all week. Not in an oh-man-I'm-super-duper-excited kind of way, but more of a holy-shit-why-did-I-sign-up-to-eat-another-ghost-chili-I-must-be-out-of-my-mind kind of way.

The crowd gathers

​The contest works like this: Each round lasts three minutes. I need to completely chew and swallow each chili --skin, seeds; everything except the cap. I'll be disqualified if I choose to give up at any time, drink the beer standing on the table in front of me, or puke. If there isn't a clear winner after the final round, they'll call it a tie and all the remaining contestants receive the full prize:

• $150 in cash money
• 2 gallons of Blue Bell ice cream
• A hot sauce basket from Desert Smoke BBQ
• An ambulance, if needed.

The emcee tells us that the peppers we grab will correspond to the order in which we're standing -- no matter how much bigger or smaller that particular pepper is. Since I'm first in line, I'll have to grab the first of each pepper variety, which after a quick glance, poses a problem in round three. But we'll get to that in a minute. As the crowd gathers, emcee Megan Finnerty of the Arizona Republic instructs us to grab the first pepper and counts down. "3...2...1...go!" The torment begins.

Get the gory details after the jump.

​Round 1: the Red Fresno
The Red Fresno is similar to a jalapeño in size and spiciness, though it's usually less meaty and has thinner skin, making it a popular choice for salsa. These peppers rate between 2,500 and 8,000 Scoville units on the heat index. I bite into the crisp skin and dispatch the pepper in four quick bites. It's actually pleasantly spicy, if such a phrase exists. Light, peppery and noticeable, but nowhere near painful. My fellow contestants polish of their respective Fresnos shortly after I do, and we all finish in under a minute. Finnerty is impressed.

Round 2: the Caloro
A variant of the popular Hot Banana pepper, Caloro peppers are a bit smaller and milder in heat. Sometimes referred to as the yellow jalapeno, they ripen from yellow to red and rate from 1,000 to 5,000 Scoville units. The guy next to me goes at his like a chipmunk, taking tiny bites and spinning the pepper as if it were corn on the cob. This one goes down even more easily than the Fresno, and I throw the pepper's cap onto the table with gusto after about 30 seconds.

Round 3: the Jalapeno
Remember how I said there'd be a problem in round three? These are the biggest damn jalapenos I've ever seen, and it's just my luck: The first is the biggest. It looks to be the size of a cucumber. Daunting, to say the least. Plus, though I'm a fan of chipotles (the smoked version of a jalapeno), this pepper's flavor does nothing for me. But eat it I must, so I choke down the 2,500-8,000 Scoville unit pepper. I'm the last to finish.

Round 4: the Serrano
The Serrano, rated about five times hotter than a jalapeno, is the first pepper whose heat I'm actually afraid of. My saving grace is that they're tiny. I take the miniscule pepper out in two bites and ready myself for the real heat to come.

​Round 5: the Habanero
Tiny yet deadly, the habanero is the hottest pepper you're likely to find at your local grocery store. These little bastards usually rate between 200,000 and 300,000 Scoville units. That's a spicy meatball! The benefit of the habanero is that he's just a little guy. I chomp the pepper from its stem in one bite, chew it up and swallow it down within about ten seconds. Easy.

But then Megan Finnerty decides to take a TV time out. She wants to learn more about the contestants, going down the line and asking them how they're feeling. As I wait, the heat of the habanero takes hold, blasting my entire mouth and throat with fire. When Megan sticks the microphone in my face and asks how I'm feeling, it's all I can do to choke out, "I want some ice cream." The crowd laughs, Megan goes into a spiel about how we'll get ice cream if we win, and I hate my life more and more.

​Round 6: the Ghost Chili
We finally arrive at the round that will separate the men from the boys. We've been over this before, but to reiterate: the ghost chili, or Bhut Jolokia, holds the current Guinness World Record for the hottest pepper on the planet. With a Scoville rating of over a million heat units, it's nearly as powerful as law enforcement-grade pepper spray. The men who farm it like to say, "When you eat it, it's like dying." Having talked to the other five contestants on stage before the contest I know that only myself and one other guy up there have even tried the things. They don't know what they're in for.

But I do. Already in agony from the heat of the habanero, I make up my mind to bypass the mind-blowing scorch of the ghost chili altogether. As Finnerty counts down, I pick up the first of the super-hot peppers and remove the stem. When she reaches zero, I pop it in my maw and swallow it whole. No chewing, no heat.

Round 7: the Ghost Chili, revisited
Originally, only one of the peppers in this godforsaken contest was supposed to be a ghost chili. But the Green Finger Pepper that was supposed to be ingested at round 6 isn't in season, and with no way to pick any up, the geniuses who set up the contest decided to simply allow another round of ghost chili eating to take its place. So here I am, the final round, another infernal Bhut Jolokia in my hand.

One contestant quit after the first ghost pepper, going straight for the cool refreshment of a Corona. There are now only five of us left, and the other four guys look like they're in agony. "Is it bad that I can't feel my feet?" one of them asks. Bad? Probably. Normal? Yes.

I follow the same strategy with the second ghost chili as I did with the first. This one, however, is much harder to get down. I swallow for a good thirty seconds and almost gag, but I get the thing down without so much as a bite, and subsequently without the pain. I raise my arms in victory as Finnerty announces that we're all winners. The competitors all shake hands, congratulating ourselves and each other, but we all know this battle has just begun. We've won, but at what cost? AT WHAT COST?!

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​Round 8: the Day After
I may have won the initial battle, but the ghost pepper always wins in the end. My mid-contest sneakiness may have been beneficial short-term, but I paid for it in the long run. No less than four fiery trips to the bathroom and hours of the worst stomach cramps I think I've ever had. I sat for hours in front of my TV, holding my stomach and chugging milk through tears.

Was it worth it in the end? Now, several days later and $150 richer, I'd say yes. But if you had asked on Sunday to give back my prize money in exchange for pain relief, I'd have taken that in a heartbeat.

No more ghost chilies. EVER.