Thai Chillies - A Biological Weapon

Seems that on Monday in central London 3 streets were shut down and homes evacuated for 3 hours while police searched for a possible biological terror threat. The cause of this commotion? A Thai restaurant, the Thai Cottage in Soho, was burning chillies to make Nam Prik Pao.

Now if you’ve eaten Thai food before you know that the spiciness of some dishes is legendary. Lots of cold Singha or Chang is in order to cool the fiery heat of the Thai chillies. Nam Prik Pao is a dip made from chillies, garlic, shallot and shrimp paste. The chillies for Nam Prik Pao are deliberately burnt to release the oils and give the chillies a smoky flavor.

I’ve experienced this first hand when Golf makes Nam Prik Pao and can vouch for the fact that when you are first exposed to chillies being burnt it will make your throat, nose and eyes burn. The first time I cam home and she was making this a coughing fit immediately ensued and I thought my eyes would melt from their sockets. This was from a small handful of chili’s being burnt. The Thai Cottage was making 9 pounds of burnt chillies! No wonder the smell and smoke from these caused a bit of a commotion.

Maybe from now on I need to contact my neighbors and warn them before we make Nam Prik Pao. I certainly don’t want to be mistaken for a terrorist because of my spicy tastes

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