From a friend...

A cautionary tale for anyone making Belizean-style hot sauce (that is,
like Marie Sharp's with carrots, onions, vinegar, lime juice, salt and
lots of habanero peppers).

Yesterday I made a batch. Seems to have turned out great, a beautiful
orange color ... BUT ... about an hour after I finished my hands
started stinging and burning.

To make the hot sauce you seed and chop up a bunch of habanero
peppers, and puree them in a food processor, and I foolishly did this
without wearing rubber gloves or coating my skin with oil.

The burning just kept getting worse. NOTHING I could do (based on my
quick read of remedies on the internet) worked -- not washing my hands
20 times, taking showers, soaking my hands in cold milk, soaking my
hands in sugar water, soaking my hands in lemon juice, soaking my
hands in alcohol.

I don't know what it is about habanero oil but it seems to seep right
through the upper layers of skin and nothing I did got it off.

Dipping my hands in ice water helped but only so long as I kept them
in the water.

This went on for hours and hours.

I know -- dumb not to wear protection.

Finally, I took a few glasses of medicinal alcohol (rum and tonic)
internally and went to sleep, and after about 6 hours I woke up and
found the burning gone at last.

Moral: Approach habanero peppers with extreme caution.

And it also gives me new respect for the Marie Sharp's workers who
deal with these peppers all the time.

==================

My response:

i was a chef for nearly 30 years and i always got a kick out of my prep cooks who would cut habaneros or chipotle peppers then go to the bathroom. without washing the peppers off their hands. they would come out running and hollaring, as with those peppered hands they had turned their weenies into hot dogs!!!

fortunate you did not touch your eyes or nose also - WOW - can that hurt - been there never again

Agree, RY. Happened to me as well one evening many years ago. Call it Belikin induced forgetfulness, whatever. OUCH!! Just have to let it run it's course.

Based on the title, I thought this thread was going to go in a ENTIRELY different direction...

Touching the eyes would be especially bad if one wore contacts. Been there, done THAT (& I only handling crushed red chili peppers).

The moral of this tale is, be careful where you put your hands.

green coconut milk kinda helps but the internal rum solution is best. love the hot sauce.

Be very, very careful!!

Ernie,

That life lesson applies to soooooo much more than just cutting up peppers!!!!!!!

PB

PB, cutting up peppers is "boot camp", then you go forward and really get burned

You can wear disposable surgical gloves. Or just put the whole habaneros on a hot comal and char them and then just pull off the stem before putting everything in the blender.

I grew them in my garden several years back and was thrilled to see several beautiful ripe ones while weeding the garden . i picked them, slipped them in my pockets then kept on working and sweating and working and sweating.....i thought it was fire ants at first and that they had somehow crawled up my legs to my crotch without my noticing. The skin comes off like a bad sun burn on the second day.

A sure fire way of getting rid of the cootys