It Burns

The Scandal-Plagued Race to Breed the World’s Hottest Chilli, An Audible Original

By: Marc Fennell

Narrated by: Marc Fennell

Winner of the Silver Narrative/Documentary Podcast Trophy at the 2020 New York Festivals Radio Awards
Nominated for the 2019 Rose D’Or award for Audio Entertainment

Please note: contains mature themes and graphic imagery.

Written and hosted by Marc Fennell, It Burns is the story of a 10-year scandal-plagued international competition that will take listeners from the Australian Coast to South Carolina (via an Indian Research Facility).

It’s a war filled with larger than life characters. There will be sledging, accusations of cheating, theft and performance enhancing drugs. And allegations that Australia was cheated out of a Guinness World Record. In the process of charting the scandal-plagued race to breed the world’s hottest chilli, the audio documentary lifts the lid on the subculture of ‘Chilli-heads’, hardcore chilli fans spread across the globe who compete in chilli eating and breeding competitions.

The internet is filled with videos of grown men being reduced to tears by a square millimetre of chilli. The docu-series asks: what motivates someone to breed and eat a demonic nugget that is so hot it no longer has flavour? At what point does this stop being cuisine and start being an endurance sport?

This humorous series shows that all this has never really been about chilli. It’s been about how people use pain to shape themselves, define themselves and make themselves feel alive.

©2019 Audible Australia Pty Ltd. (P)2019 Audible Australia Pty Ltd

Critic reviews

"It’s so full of weird twists and turns that I binged the entire five episodes in one go during a road trip." (PedestrianTV)

"A mental image isn’t hard to conjure when your headphones swell with the frantic splutters and gags of chilli eaters in pain, or the guttural aftermath of Youtuber Ted Barrus’s infamous Carolina Reaper chilli “bong rip”. Heed Fennell’s warning in episode one: “You might want to think twice about eating while listening.” (Broadsheet)

Listen and salivate!

I came across this Audible Original when Audible offered it to members as one of their "choose two free" titles and after listening to the 5 minute sample, where the author interviews his own mother under mild protest while she's eating, I wanted to hear more of what he was going to say about hot chili peppers. I liked his easy-going, playful voice and I found his Australian accent to be quite charming. I'm a novice hot pepper eater, happy to brighten my meals with ground red chili pepper, or habanero Tabasco sauce, and always black pepper too, so I was curious to find out more about the world of spicy peppers to open my eyes and expand my knowledge and deepen my understanding. What a fascinating topic it turned out to be! I learned a lot, and I might now go ahead and sign that waiver form at our local BBQ joint in order to get them to unlock their prized bottle of super-hot pepper sauce (which is kept under lock and key in full view!) and give it a try. I feel emboldened now. The local restaurant in question is called Firefly's, in Marlborough, Massachusetts, USA in case anyone reading my review is curious to do it too! It was a very enjoyable 3 hours of listening and I recommend it.

I learned stuff about chillies that I never knew

This really was interesting. Overall I really enjoyed it. But I think it was more like bingeing on my fav podcast instead of like reading a book.

Thoroughly Enjoyed

As a professional chef this was an entertaining and joyfully listen. Keep in mind tontraditional listen.

good

nice one .. interesting and must listen best way to listen to good story .

Could have been better

Our family loves hot foods - we have our own extensive hot sauce collection - and we live part of the year in New Mexico. This was an OK listen, but it could have been so much better with just a little effort. The fascinating historic parts about where peppers originated and how they traveled and found their way into different cuisines, is given the shortest possible shrift right at the end. I would have enjoyed more of that, and less of the repetitive "why do people love pain isn't it interesting and weird how some people love pain" blablabla and "omg why are pepper growers so competitive" (where did this author live so far? hello because it's a big business and all big businesses are competitive).