Gringo: A disparaging term for a foreigner in Latin America, especially an American or English person

In my opinion, everyone has a piece of their day where they encountered something that could be considered comical or out of the ordinary. Yesterday that something was Chi-town’s gringo pizza.

Some background on this. The gringo pizza is a currently non-advertised item at the Chi-town pizza parlor in Chicago, IL. Deemed by locals as one of the spiciest in the world, it features a fiery mix of four different types of habanero peppers. Topping at around a 200-300K scollville heat unit rating, the pizza registers 4-6 times as hot as Tabasco sauce.

All of that meant nothing to me though. I’ve eaten some of the best of the best. Dave’s insanity, Indian curry, the extra-hot at a Mexican burrito joint, all had with little or no problems, so on Friday night I decided to try the Diablo pizza. One bite and that was more than enough. None of these prior experiences could have prepared me for what I was about to incur.

It literally felt like someone had lighted a match under my tongue, kicked me in the balls, and ran. All I could do was pace back and forth withering in pain. The owner, laughing like the jack ass he is for creating this contraption, offered me a tall glass of ice water. It did nothing. Eating the crust helped, but only momentarily suspended the pain. It was pure hell and only seemed to intensify. For about 15-20 minutes the throbbing continued. Rotating back and forth between my mouth and my stomach, my whole body began to feel like this things punching bag.

Unfortunately that wasn’t the end of it either. Round 2 began the next morning. The familiar feeling of my stomach being pummeled erupted every 20-30 minutes, and I had to repeatedly stop whatever I was doing so that I could singe off another ass hair.

After all this the “wifey,” asked “Was it really worth going through all that?” And in my opinion of course it was. Not many people can say that they braved the spiciest pizza in the world. Sure at one point or another it felt like the thing was trying smoke a combination of either my mouth, ass, or stomach, but I finally think I found my spice limit. For some it’s crushed red pepper, others it’s a whole jalapeno, for me it’s the gringo pizza.