Is the Datil Pepper the Most Flavorful Pepper?

Datil peppers are among the hottest varieties of pepper known to be eaten by humans. Consider this blog posting to be under the alternative energy heading for my blog. Datil peppers are generally regarded as being a variety of the Capsicum chinese species of pepper and are often classed as a variety of the habenero peppers, which they    resemble both in appearance and hotness. 

The datil variety differs from other habeneros in its distinctive fruity flavor which is almost as intense as its heat.  Datils vary in heat between 100,000 to 300,000 Scoville units. The Scoville scale is based on content of capsicum, the hot chemical of peppers. By comparison, a jalapeno will vary between 2,500 and 10,000 Scoville units and a  tabasco pepper will be about 50,000 units.

My first memory of a tabasco pepper comes from a time when was about three or four years old. I found a tabasco  pepper on a neighbors lovely plant and managed to touch the pepper to my lip. I actually had a blister on my lip. Datils are hotter. 

Datils and tabasco peppers have one trait in common. They have intense flavors. If you add a dash of Tabasco sauce to a scrambled egg (before cooking) the rich, hearty flavor of the pepper will be distinct without any noticeable heat. Many datil hot sauces have the distinct fruity flavor while not being hotter that Tabasco brand hot sauce, or  even not as hot.

Fresh datil peppers are available in central Florida, especially near St. Augustine, and can be purchased online  elsewhere. Most Datil peppers are produced within 50 miles of St Augustine. Datil peppers are usually associated with the Minorcan settlers near St. Augustine. Legend says that the Datil pepper will not grow elsewhere, but that is  not true. It is possible that peppers grown elsewhere will vary in flavor. Datil pepper plants will vary some in flavor  and are available in different varieties. Those labeled as Minorcan will have the most authentic flavor, but varieties  developed by the University of Florida may be easier to grow away from the St. Augustine area. 

The most famous datil dish is Minorcan clam chowder, or Minorcan conch chowder. The clam chowder recipe is  made by substituting clam for conch. Conch can be purchased legally at a rather steep price, or it can be purchased on the black market at the risk of a serious felony conviction. Minorcan clam chowder recipes can be found online.  Here is my older son Henry's recipe for a glaze for chicken or fish, or anything else that strikes your fancy.

                                BroHank's Datil Glaze

Ingredients:

1. 1 small to medium datil pepper

2. 1/3 cup citrus honey (lemon or lime if you can get it) Use raw local honey of any  variety if you wish. Raw local  honey has health benefits beyond those of commercial honey. Be aware that linden blossom honey is sold in  Europe as Lime Blossom Honey. 

3. 2/3 cup lemon or lime juice, plus zest to taste if desired. Key lime would be great.

4. About 1 cubic inch of fresh ginger root

Wearing gloves, remove seeds and pith from pepper. Do not touch any sensitive part of body, especially on face. If you can tolerate extremely hot foods, just toss whole pepper in blender. Add honey, juice, and ginger and blend until all solids are thoroughly pureed. Let sit for at least an hour, overnight would be good.  

For chicken or fish, marinate for about 20 minutes, and then bake or grill while continuing to baste to produce a glaze to taste. This will be zesty. 

Is Deism Still Alive in America?

      Deism is a belief system that is based on the idea that God is revealed to man through nature and natural law  and not through Divine Revelation.  Theism is another similar belief system that differs in having the belief that God is a single personal being who is involved in the day to day state of the universe, including human history.

     Historically many prominent scientists, especially Physicists, have been Deists, or at least considered as such. The term Theist would probably be more appropriate in many of these cases.  Many of these people were also not only church members, but devoted church members. I use the term church to mean any type of practicing religious congregation.

     Recently some preachers of the religion of Atheism have  become convinced that they have the right to ram their beliefs down the throats of everyone else. They have become like militant pseudo-Muslims with their swords in hand demanding that we convert or die. Bear in mind that true Muslims don't behave that way.

•      What can be, must be  Richard Feynman is widely credited with quoting the principle from particle Physics that any particle not forbidden by the rules of Particle Physics must exist. Ontological arguments eventually seem to be equivalent to the concept that the lack of proof that God does not exist means that He must exist. They usually use different terms but that is what they mean. 

       Personally I feel that divine revelation can come from logic, at least to some of us. That is probably most true for people with a trace of Asperger's syndrome.  When I was a student at William and Mary  on a Physics Scholarship one of my professors related an anecdote about a Physics Professor who would walk down the hallway studying a book and with his right index finger on the wall. If a classroom door were left open he would circumambulate  the room and proceed down the hallway.  One day he walked into a graduate mathematical physics class where they were trying to prove some high-power problem. They stopped him and asked if he could help them. He looked at the problem and wrote down the answer, which they already knew.  The class professor thanked him but asked if he could show them how he arrived at the solution. He looked at the problem and wrote down the solution again. When the class professor again explained that they were looking for how he found the solution he replied "What do you want, I  solved it two different ways!"  Some things are obvious to one person but not to another.

• Deism does not conflict with religions other than Atheism   Many of our American founding fathers were Deists. Most of them were also devout Christians. Some were Jewish. Remember that the basic tenets of Christianity came not by Divine Revelation but by the teaching of Jesus. St Paul stated that the fact of God was revealed in nature to primitive peoples. Many religious people object to intelligent people seeking revelation by reason. That is because their faith is weak.Not everyone can slay the Existential Dragon.

      

still trying to figure out how to get post to fit screen correctly

I'm still trying to figure out the mechanics of making my posts fit the space without a lot of editing after I complete the article. I will have a new post in the next day or two. I just noticed that after I changed the look of my blog some of the posts need to be edited to fit the page.

Artificial Lighting and The Quality of Human Life

When we talk about the history of lighting and humans we need to understand that humans include all hominids. People first began using fire about 800,000 years ago. Fire was used for lighting, heat, and cooking. The use of fire for cooking vastly improved  the diet of humans and resulted in rapid evolution of the human brain. The availability of light from fires changed sleep patterns of humans. The necessity of keeping camp fires burning all night also helped change sleep patterns. Camp fires kept dangerous animals away. Camp fires also probably had an effect on the evolution of dogs since they evolved from camp followers who became domesticated.

The development of better light in the form of oil lamps and candles helped develop civilization. Large cities don't function very well with nothing but wood fires for lighting. Various oil lamps and eventually kerosene lamps had an immense effect on civilization. Whale oil drove a large industry for several centuries and the petroleum industry still dominates much of world economy.

Although electric lighting was first developed in the early 19th century it was not until the early 20th century that it began to be widely distributed. The broad distribution of electric power and lighting was funded by the  American people through their government to the considerable profit of a number of wealthy industrialists, much as with the rail system and a number of other industries. Electric lighting came in several different forms. The  primary form was incandescent lighting, which uses a filament usually  made of metal heated by electrical current. Close behind that was  fluorescent lighting, followed by gas-discharge such as neon  lighting, and arc lighting.

By the mid 20th century two other forms of lighting began to emerge. One of these, electroluminescence, is primarily used for lighting instrument  panels and advertising displays. It is not very useful for lighting even  though electroluminescent night lights were available until light emitting  diode technology began to develop. 

By the beginning of the 21st century developed nations began to try to      phase out the use of incandescent lighting because of the extremely poor  efficiency of incandescent lighting, usually about 5%. That means that only about 5% of the energy consumed by the lamp is converted into visible light with most of the rest being converted into heat. This compares to up to  60% efficiency for compact fluorescent light bulbs. Many incandescent  lights produce so much heat that they can be a fire hazard. Some  incandescent bulbs are used for heating purposes.

The initial push to replace incandescent light bulbs was centered on the  compact fluorescent light (CFL) bulb. Tube type fluorescent lights have  long been used for commercial lighting. A compact fluorescent bulb  produces about five times as much light as an incandescent bulb consuming the same amount of electricity. The   compact fluorescent lasts about seven  to eight times as long. The one environmental concern with all fluorescent lights is that they contain mercury, a toxic environmental concern. Of  course, coal burning power plants release mercury and other serious toxins so the danger of accidental release of mercury from fluorescent lights is at  least partially offset by the reduction of environmental harm from power  plants.

Recently the move to eliminating incandescent lighting has begun to shift to the use of light emitting diodes or LEDs. These lights are almost twice as  efficient as CF Ls and last at least 5 times longer. Currently an LED bulb is more expensive than a CFL but considerably cheaper in the long run. Just as the price of CFLs has plummeted in just a few years the cost of LEDs is  rapidly falling.

One type of LED fixture which is particularly more efficient is the troffer. Troffer fixtures are the 2'x2' or 2'x4' recessed fixture found in so many  commercial settings. LED lights direct all their output in one direction so  that none of the output is wasted. In a lighting fixture such as a troffer  that means that the efficiency is even greater than the difference  between the basic "bulbs". LED lights have several other advantages over  fluorescent fixtures. They do not fade, flicker, or buzz and they can be  dimmed. They also operate over a wide temperature range. Unlike both  fluorescent and incandescent lights they are not affected by being turned  on and off frequently. This means that they are particularly suited to use in commercial freezers with motion sensors. Many grocery stores now use   such lighting in frozen food displays. 

LED Christmas lights are now becoming common. No fire hazard and  replacing burned out bulbs. However, your bubble lights still need  incandescent bulbs.