Some like it hot

Ever since we moved here we have been on the look out for stuff one cannot for the world buy in this part of France. And I am not talking about trivial stuff like Brown Sauce or Marmite, no, I am referring to stuff that is vital for one’s survival, like chilli peppers.
To our big surprise, just before our second Christmas in France, we found a lady at the entrance of Intermarché trying to flog off something she announced as “petits poivrons” (small peppers, or small paprikas). These tiny little colourful things, in the Netherlands known as Madame Jeanettes or more correctly as adjumas, and I think in the UK as Scotch bonnets, are innocent looking things which however are more than capable of blowing someone’s brains out. We were well surprised to find them in Burgundy, where a tiny bit of the mildest curry powder is considered to be deadly for the tongue and the taste buds. Later that year we encountered them occasionally in Grand Frais.

Since we had just been to the Netherlands bringing back a kilo of the stuff to be frozen, there was no need to buy any; a decision I regretted ever since.
After this once we have never seen anything remotely resembling something hot in the shops. We have searched everywhere for ordinary chilli peppers, in Carrefour, Intermarché, Atac, Grand Frais, the market and the like. The “hottest” readily available peppers are “piments forts”, which are mildly spicier than green peppers (piments doux), and since then we brought tons of lomboks or chilli peppers over from the Netherlands. However, we kept on searching in France, to no avail, until today.
When we entered the Intermarché at lunch time, I saw to my big surprise a box full of red chilli peppers, labelled as “Piments rouges”. However, having been fooled by the piments forts before, we decided to buy one pepper, just to see whether this was a proper chilli or one of the fake paprikas so popular here.
To the amazement of the lady at the till I took the pepper from its plastic bag after having paid for it, and took a good bite. It tasted spicy, but not really hot. However, I suspected that this was the real stuff, and not some surrogate article. To make sure, I took another bite, this time containing a good number of seeds...

And lo and behold, the moment I had chewed a few seeds, a warm sensation spread through my mouth, which spontaneously started to produce saliva in great quantities.
Which proves that there are actually simple ways to figure out whether something is really hot, or not, without asking the shop keeper...