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I don't understand how people do this, to be honest. Do you know how spicy food works? The receptor it triggers in your mouth is TRPV1, which does handle heat regulation and sensitivity, but it's also a pain receptor. Like, selectively removing it to treat the pain caused by bone cancer kind of receptor.
The kind of heat that sets it off is heat above 109F/43C, in addition to things like scorpion venom. Presumably it comes through as heat. Everyone tells me it feels hot. I don't get "heat." I get what is clearly agony in one of the most innervated areas of the body, and science backed me up on this.
Y'all are addicted to licking the curling iron and I'm the weird one
You're probably just sensitive to capsaicin. I love hot food, and it takes a lot for me to end up in agony like you described. But I've definitely been that guy at an Indian place where I'm sweating profusely while telling the staff the food is delicious.
Finding a hot sauce that tastes good/doesn't taste like hot garbage is harder than actually eating food seasoned with it.
I'm a chili head and I fucking hate hot sauce that's just pain without flavor. I've also been the guy in a Thai restaurant that regretted "hottest" on their menu.
Same. I've thrown out entire gift sets I've gotten because it's just hot garbage in a bottle. I always tell the giver that I appreciate the thought, but if you're gonna spend the money, go to someplace like pepper Palace and get one good thing instead of six bottles turds.
I think that's why I tend to like carrot based hot sauces over vinegar. The carrot dulls the spiciness a bit and you get the flavor of the peppers more.
Carrot based hot sauce you say? I'm intrigued and will research on my own, but do you have a suggestion for a good tasting medium heat hot sauce that is carrot based?
Many of the thick sauces are carrot based, since it stops it just being a bottle of spice water and actually has a sauce consistancy
Secret Aardvark is pretty famous in the US West and its third ingredient is carrot. This site has a whole section for carrot-based. I think they are usually habanero sauces
I actually have some Secret Aardvark in my fridge already, it's tasty stuff. Never realized it was carrot based. Thanks for the info and link.
Ferment your own if you really want to get wild. It's not hard, just takes patience.
Same here I like chilli in moderation, a drop or two of habanero or a really strong ghost pepper sauce gives plenty taste and heat.
At some point I found out that I'm not superman when it comes to chilli and while I eating really hot food my body says "Stop not a bite more!"
Now I just try to stay far from my limit where I can enjoy the taste of chilli.
My thoughts also. The spice level should accentuate the flavour, not just be hot for scoville bragging. i had amazing spicy Thai, the good thing is it was too hot for my wife to steal any from my plate
The pain is kind of the point. More specifically the body's response to pain is the point. Eating spicy food, especially mild foods when starting, is a low level pain but it triggers the body's pain response. You get those nice dopamine and endorphins released. You end up associating the two and your journey to liking spicy food has begun.
It gets easier the more spicy food you eat. I think your brain just starts muting the pain response because it clearly isn't stopping the painful thing from happening.
Also, spiciness is an easy way to get some flavor into an otherwise bland dish. Handy if you're on a diet.
And it hurts in kinda a good way? Kinda, like wiggling a loose tooth when you're a kid...
My mom, a wonderful lady in every other sense, was a terrible cook. The blandest of the bland. Unseasoned potatoes and overcooked meat was the norm. Even when she branched out to other things like stir fry and pizza, she still somehow managed to make them utterly flavorless.
I distinctly recall one day at school, somehow I ended up with a little too much pepper in my tomato soup. It was like my taste buds had finally come of age or something. I started regularly adding too much pepper to my tomato soup. Then Tobasco. Then, as a young adult I found a specialty hot sauce place in the mall. It was the second coming!
Now, I live in Korea, and wow they're not afraid to spice it up here. I do get tired of the constant "Oh, the waygook (foreigner) can handle spicy food!" refrain though.
Some people go overboard with peppers that are all heat and no flavour; Those add nothing to the dish. Proper Thai or Indian with a mix of spice brings out the flavours, so its hot but also delicious. And it hits the mouth different. Like those hot pepper challenges arent food, they just burn all over lips mouth and throat, that should never a dining experience
I'm with you on this
The heart wants what it wants
Pain = dolphins in my brain. (=
Hot=pain=endorphins= happiness
I totally agree with you. My in-laws are always talking about how spicy they like their Indian takeaway food, and how they have to change their usual order when I'm dining with them. I'm just here thinking, "I don't like it when the food hurts my mouth when I'm eating it." Its as simple as that. If I can choose two versions of the same food, where one hurts my mouth and the other doesn't, I'm going with the non-painful one, thanks.
The one exception I make is Jalapenos. I love the taste of jalapenos. They are not very spicy on the whole scale of things, and the flavour they add to subway sandwiches and vegetarian pizzas is amazing. But that is unrelated to Indian food.
Before refridgeration was developed, food rotting was a major problem in the hot, humid tropics. The solution was to poison the food with spice - it would be somewhat unpleasant to eat, but would kill pests. I suppose over the years we got used to it.
Fun fact: English has words for four basic tastes (sweet, salt, sour and bitter). Indian languages have a fifth basic taste - chilly or spicy.