Zee Media Bureau/Udita Madan
New Delhi: Love spicy food? Then you have Wilbur Scoville to thank!
January 22nd marks the 151st birth anniversary of Wilbur Scoville, who became the first person to measure the heat of chili peppers.
Born in Bridgeport, Connecticut, Scoville was an American pharmacist, best known for his 1912 creation of the "Scoville Organoleptic Test", now called the Scoville scale, which is used to measure the pungency of various chili peppers.
Internet search giant Google, has paid a tribute to Scoville in its trademark doodle style in an interactive representation. The doodle shows Scoville against a backdrop of red chili peppers forming the word 'Google' and also holding one in his hand, as if about to eat it.
Upon clicking the play button on the doodle, Scoville is shown eating various chili peppers to figure out the heat content, which makes way for a small game, every time he pops a pepper into his mouth.
Scoville's book, The Art of Compounding, makes one of the earliest mentions of milk as an antidote for pepper heat.
According to Wikipedia, the Carolina Reaper, which measures at 1.6m Scoville units, which is 1,600 times hotter than a jalapeno, is the hottest pepper in the world.
