Chiliheads swear that hot peppers induce a mild euphoria by activating pain receptors, causing the brain to release endorphins, the same natural painkiller that produces runner's high. What would drive a human being to such feats of esophageal abuse? I don't know whether he was born without taste buds or he just burned them out.' 'He orders four habaneros on the side, bites the ends off and pours habanero sauce in them like little cups. 'We've got this one crazy kid who comes in here and orders a bowl of chili and dumps powdered habanero all over it,' Boyd says. Regulars wear T-shirts proclaiming 'I Survived the Hall of Flame.' Every other Tuesday night, chef Marty Boyd, a transplanted Californian, delves into Szechwan, Jamaican or some other hot cuisine. And restaurants such as Thai Chilli have drawn acclaim for their sniffly fare.Д«ut no place has promoted hot stuff more than Atlanta's Feeders, the Cheshire Bridge Road barbecue joint, which draws turn-away crowds for its 'Hall of Flame' dinners. Habanero sauces are starting to show up next to familiar brands in local stores. Even so, there are signs of growing interest. 'I can't keep up with them all,' says Chuck Evans, an Ohio fiery foods dealer who's co-writing a book on hot sauces.Д¬ompared with Louisiana or the Southwest, Atlanta is relatively virgin territory for fiery foods. Tabasco, the original hot sauce (1868), has joined the trend with a new jalapeno blend and, coming later this year, a hotter Tabasco habanero. Packaged Facts counts at least 450 labels with more than local distribution, most of them less than 10 years old. Small wonder that dozens of micro-sauciers have crowded the field. Chile Pepper magazine, whose liberal definition includes nonfood novelties such as Tshirts, figures it at $2.5 billion В— a third bigger than it was five years ago. The fiery food market, a catch-all category that covers everything from salsas and hot sauces to jalapeno cheeses and pepper-flavored vodkas, is growing at a phenomenal 10 percent a year, according to Packaged Facts, a New York research firm. For that matter, do you think the Nelsons would have strung chili pepper lights on their Christmas tree? Indeed, it's hard to imagine Harriet inflicting a habanero burger on Ozzie.

'America's taste buds are being born again,' says Paul McIlhenny, whose family makes the most popular hot sauce, Tabasco.

One variety, California's red savina, was rated at 577,000 Scoville units (the standard measure of heat), making it the hottest pepper ever recorded. Each year brings another half-dozen cookbooks on hot sauces and other spicy comestibles, including, most recently, an entire volume on the world's hottest pepper, the habanero. Salsa, by some measures, has replaced ketchup as a top-selling condiment. Spicy cuisines from Cajun to Mexican to Thai to Ethiopian account for a large portion of new restaurants. While few would agree with one catalog's slogan В— 'Pain Is Good' (illustrated with a boy howling like a coyote) В— there's little doubt that the nation's palate is undergoing a sort of global warming. A growing number of Americans are testing that line these days.

It's kind of a fun trick.'Д«ut when it comes to fiery foods, the culinary equivalent of whips and chains, there's a fine line between pleasure and pain. Then you watch: He's red, he's sweating, he's down, he's out.

He bites into the seeds and veins, which is where the heat is В— not the tip. 'First you bite the tip off a pepper, then you say, 'Hey, this isn't so hot' and hand it to the other guy. Chip Hearn, a Delaware restaurateur who is reputed to have the world's largest hot sauce collection, was divulging the secret of a chilihead initiation В— a rite that stings more than any belt line.

Endorphin rush hot sauce