Let Me Cool Down With Some Scotch Bonnets

[filkertom]

Food so hot you have to sign a waiver.

What's your food heat tolerance? I love the sensation and flavor of hot foods... but at what I'm sure most people consider a fairly wimpy level, the mid-range of "mild". That said, specific examples for me would be a decent Pad Thai, the dry rub on the ribs at Red Hot & Blue, and, oh, a half a fricking jar of decently tasty salsa, pass the tortilla chips and cheddar. My chili recipe has what I consider to be a pleasant bite, without sacrificing flavor -- a few shakes of Clancy's Fancy do wonders. And Thai Kitchen Roasted Garlic Soup has replaced Zingerman's excellent homemade chicken soup as my default if I've got a cold, if for no other reason than I'm usually too sick to go to Zing's to get it when I've got a cold.

Comments

[mimiheart.livejournal.com]

I think pepper on fish is too spicy. :D I was raised in a family of spicy-food lovers too. I actually think my sister would like those. She eats wasabi by itself.

[matociquala.livejournal.com]

I have an extremely high heat tolerance--I not only own, but have been known to use Big Ed's Hot Sauce, a product consisting of, well, scotch bonnet peppers and vinegar, ground up to make a sort of paste.

But I'm not actually interested in pretending I *like* food at the extreme end of my tolerance. I have been known to *eat* it, in a fit of macha, just to prove that I am just as butch as all the boys in the room. But it's a stunt.

However, my level of "pleasantly spicy" is probably higher than most people's, which is something I have to calibrate for when cooking for others.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Anne once got a bottle of Dave's Insanity Sauce. The label said to use no more than a drop. She had a pot of chili, and she added one small blob -- a single shake of the bottle, basically a large drop. She ended up throwing the entire pot of chili, and the bottle of Dave's, in the trash.

[purpleranger.livejournal.com]

The label on Dave's Insanity Sauce also says that it can strip floor wax and remove grease stains from concrete. Not something I want to try.

[dr-zrfq.livejournal.com]

I've actually put two drops of Dave's Insanity Sauce in a *bowl* of chili, when in the mood for some really hot stuff. This was at a party thrown by Texans, and I got funny looks. Then again, I eat the 9-1-1 Wings at the local Buffalo Wing Factory (http://www.buffalowingfactory.com/), which are made with Dave's Insanity Sauce. (There are two *hotter* grades of wings there; I'll only eat one of the hotter ones at a sitting.)

My tolerance for spicy goes up and down over a very side range, based on several factors. Drives my wife nuts sometimes, since her (fairly high) tolerance is considerably less variable.

[matociquala.livejournal.com]

Hee. I once over-Edded a pot of chili. We ate it, but it was, er, a "bonding experience."

Best bit was when my then-roomate's cat, a rescue who would literally eat anything, having been very very hungry in his younger days, decided to steal some of the chili our friend Ted had left on the floor while he went to get more tortilla chips. The cat then walked around the living room licking random objects for ten minutes... and then went back and finished the chili.

[tarsa.livejournal.com]

I would have to check out those wings at least once! *grin*

[ladystarblade.livejournal.com]

I don't so much like the heat sort of hot...but I do like foods with a spicy kick. Examples would be a good General Tso chicken or the queso dip from a local whole foods market.

Examples of the bad kind of heat are any jalepeno and the orange chicken from a place in Indianapolis that I can't remember the name of. The kind of spice that sends me gulping down icy liquids and makes my taste buds close up shop for a while.

[starcat-jewel.livejournal.com]

I like a lot of spicy food, probably more than many people can tolerate. But there's a HUGE difference between "spicy/hot" and "incendiary"! I'm no endorphin-addict; if all I can taste is the heat, I'm not interested.

One of the things I like about being in Texas is that my tastes are not always on the extreme upper edge. My favorite wing place, for example, has sauces ranging from "no heat" up to "Mario hot" -- and their medium is quite satisfactory for me. At an Indian restaurant, I may ask the waiter to make "what you would call medium". :-)

[maiac.livejournal.com]

I have no tolerance at all for hot peppers, and very little even for black pepper or non-French's mustard. I'm too sensitive to the "hot"; it burns, my preciousssss, so much that I can't detect any flavor in the hot food. So what's the point?

Garlic or ginger? Bring it on. Peppery hot or mustard hot? DO NOT WANT.

The problem is, my interpretation of "not hot" is "no hotness whatever." Other people's interpretation is "won't make you break into a profuse sweat while tears stream down your face." So, I ask of some unfamiliar food at a potluck, "Is this hot?" And the cook says, "No." And I take a bite, and spend the rest of the evening in pain and unable to taste anything.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

You'll have to try my chili one of these days. I, too, have major problems with the notion of chemical burn as fine dining. But I suspect from what you say that I like it warmer than you do.

I've never noticed garlic as having "heat". Ginger has a pronounced bite, but that doesn't seem "hot" to me, either. I have, at last, come to love a few mustards, used in moderation in the right recipes -- for instance, Honeycup on a corned beef & swiss sandwich, or the mustard slaw at Zing's Roadshow.

[maiac.livejournal.com]

I don't think of garlic or ginger has having "heat"; what I meant is that there's some "spicy" or "strong" flavors that I do like (I love onions, too). I.e., it's not that all my food must be bland. There's some tangy mustard I like, too. But, for example, as far as my taste buds are concerned Dijon mustard has only a burning sensation, no flavor.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Seriously, while I'm not going evangelical on it, you might want to try much, much smaller quantities of the stuff than people tend to slather onto whatever. Because that's what I have to do. If it still burns, hey. I understand.

[redaxe.livejournal.com]

Garlic has a range of heat, just as do peppers. But (a) more folks are used to garlic and (b) the garlic that gets used generally is less hot than it might be and (c) garlic is well cooler than chilis and other hot peppers more commonly used for the purpose. So it's not really surprising that you don't associate it with the sensation. I mostly notice it when I bite a chunk, rather than when it's used as flavoring.

[ms-dblk.livejournal.com]

I'm on your side. Garlic and onions are fine. The other things tend to give me "dragon mouth" - and can't taste anything after that. My 'nuther half tells folks that if it isn't bland I think it's hot. Not quite that bad, but close.

I've learned to like Mexican (from down into the country) vs Tex-Mex foods. The Mexican isn't hot, but has flavor, but Tex-Mex appears to only be a test of what can you stand.

kk

[gorgeousgary]

Sounds like you've got about the same heat tolerance as me. I'll do orange chicken and General Tso's at a Chinese place, or biriyani and korma at an Indian place. Or the mild wings at Wing Stop.

[razorjak.livejournal.com]

I love hot food. It usually only takes a few visits to "hot cuisine" restaurants like Indian or Thai places for the waiters to realize that I truly mean it when I say, "Bring it as spicy as you make it for yourselves.". I'd probably try those wings.

But upon reading that article it makes me wonder whether it's the reporter or the restaurant that is in error.

Neither white bread nor sugar do anything for capsicum heat. Hell, pepper jelly is hotter than the peppers that are used in making it BECAUSE of the sugar.

[jcw-da-dmg.livejournal.com]

My stomach has trouble dealing with onions, but apparently not garlic or hot chilis (though I try to keep the quantity in check). I enjoy spicy foods but try not to have them too often.

[darrenzieger.livejournal.com]

I'm a complete wuss when it comes to spices. Which is a shame because I like the flavor of lot of spicy foods. I just can't physically tolerate them. I love Indian cuisine, for example, but most of it is to hot for me.

Of course, I was raised on Jewish cuisine, which is the exact opposite of spicy. The stuff in the pepper shaker was about as intense as it gets.

Heh. A few years ago, there was an NPR report on some research that determined that the reaction of the tongue to highly spicy foods was chemically identical to it's reaction to actual extreme heat. Apparently, a burn is a burn.

[jss]

Depends on the spice. Hot with flavor I like, hot for the sake of heat annoys the hell out of me. I'll eat spicy Chinese (mm, General Tso's chicken, or the suan la chao sho and dun dun noodles at Mary's in Cambridge MA), and enjoy some of the spicier Mexican dishes, but as a general rule I don't care for Indian or Thai cuisine, but that's more because an ingredient (for me: most curries, coconut milk, and peanuts) is unwelcome than because the spice level is too high.

[cheshyre]

I can't do pepper-hot, but I like wasabi and radish-heat.

[ms-anthropy.livejournal.com]

My MIL used to make a game out of trying to find something so hot I wouldn't eat it. She failed. After the habanero incident she gave up.

[bryanp.livejournal.com]

I don't mind hot & spicy, but many times I find the food is hot & spicy just for the sake of being hot & spicy and has a tendency to overwhelm the other flavors.

[sarekofvulcan.livejournal.com]

I have a decent tolerance for heat, but I usually won't go above 2 out of 3 stars/peppers. The only time I really torture myself is for Dixie's Barbecue in Bellevue, Washington. They have a hot sauce called "The Man" -- the owner will walk around the dining room dishing it out.

One time, I made the mistake of taking too much, and trying to drown it with water, with ultimately predictable results.

Another time, I went with my wife. She doesn't like spicy foods, but I convinced her to take a tiny bit on the end of one tine of a fork. She tasted it: a second later, she yelled "Garrett, I hate you!" and started trying to put out the fire. :-)

[tomreedtoon.livejournal.com]

God, how can you guys eat this stuff? Once, when I was on a bus to Roswell, New Mexico, looking for a TV job, I had this weird old guy in the back of the bus. (I think he may have been a latent pedophile, but hell, it was the only place I could smoke, and there were three other people my age back there that were kind of tolerating him.)

Anyway, someplace in Texas, the bus driver suggested we go to this place for some of the best food on earth while he was waiting for the bus to be serviced. We went there. I ate. I felt whatever it is that I ate (some kind of tamale/nachos/chimichanga thing) for the next three days, as it slowly passed through my digestive system, burning everything in its path.

I will admit to using a SLIGHT amount of hot sauce on some things - like stew if it is too bad. But never again. Never again. Never Thai food, or anything that tries to engage the diner with some kind of stupid macho battle with his sphincter's pain limits.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

These things must be done in moderation. The very first time I went to the Siam Kitchen in Ann Arbor -- my very first experience with Thai food -- I selected cashew chicken, thinking it wouldn't be too hot. I was correct; it wasn't too hot, and was very tasty. But, as I was getting down to the last few bites, I nabbed something I thought was a sauce-covered cashew. And I chewed it a bit.

It wasn't a sauce-covered cashew.

The next twenty minutes were rather entertaining for my dinner companions. (I was trying to tough it out, because it can't last more than a few minutes, right? And I ended up drinking a lot of water, at which point the waitron figured it out and brought milk and bread.)

Nowadays, of course, I go there for my standard, the Lunch Special "B", which features pad thai, fried rice, a spring roll, and some lovely fried shrimp with a sauce that is right at the top of my heat tolerance, good for at least three glasses of water and all of that damn rice. Wonderful beyond belief... but not all the time.

[dr-zrfq.livejournal.com]

Ow! I feel your pain, having done the same thing with a General Tso's Surprise Hot Pepper once. (They weren't supposed to batter and fry the pepper, it was a mistake. Only happened the once, which is good, since that place makes my absolute favorite General Tso's in the entire multiverse.)

[razorjak.livejournal.com]

Gotta love those thai peppers. :-)

Skip the water though. Go with something alcoholic (The heat in peppers is alcohol soluble.) or with a decent fat content (I always order a lassi when eating in Indian restaurants.)

[sylverwolfe.livejournal.com]

I like my spicy foods. I have a higher heat tolerance than the rest of the household, tho, so I have to scale back a bit for the comfort of others. That being said, J Gumbo's spiciness, anything rated Ai-yi-yi, I can tolerate at most a taste, no more than a few bites before my mouth goes numb. And Tijuana Flats had a sauce that the tiniest test drop worked its way into the corners of my jaw and STAYED there, trying to sear my sinuses, until I drowned it with more guacamole than I can usually manage enthusiasm for (and a healthy dose of the BEST queso I've ever had). But I'm still a fan of the heat. I blame my honorary sister Rave for thinking it'd be fun to give me a whole habanero pepper when we were in...jr. high? It was HOT, but I managed not to have to chase it down with anything like she did.
There IS definitely a point where the heat kills the flavor. That, I don't like. But the warmth as a PART of the flavor...yum.

[admnaismith.livejournal.com]

In my younger days, my roommates used to run out of the house screaming, "OMG, Miles cooked outa the cajun cookbook again; I'M not eating that!!!" I'm also considered odd for eating the red pepper pods that come in my Chinese food.

On the other hand, when I got a couple of fresh habaneros and just chomped them down to see what they were like, the peppers won. Especially the next day when I learned that they burn on the way out, too. So I guess I'm not the most pepper-macho man there is, but I have more tolerance/preference than most people I know. My favorite seasoning is Chef Paul Prudhomme's magic mix.

I also get a real hoot out of inspecting the hot sauce rack at specialty groceries. You know, the racks with row upon row of bottles with little cartoon devils winking rougishly, and donkeys rearing to display their smoking, red horseshoes that will "kick yo' ass". There are brand names like "Scorned Woman (Hell hath no fury)", "Dante's Inferno", and "All Out Thermonuclear War", all of which promise to be the very hottest sauce ever made.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

See, that's why I vastly prefer Clancy's Fancy (locally made!) to Tabasco, let alone any of those gut-busters. I like a little flavor with my heat, especially since I don't want much damn heat.

[razorjak.livejournal.com]

I actually still have a bottle of Scorned Woman. Good stuff in small amounts. And you have to love a bottle that comes sealed in black wax.

The worst western hot sauce I've ever tried was actually labeled "Ass in the tub". A chicago friend of mine had it and wanted me to try it on scrambled eggs.

Later on that day ... I'd never wanted a popsicle suppository so much in my life.

[purpleranger.livejournal.com]

I can tolerate most medium salsas. I don't push the envelope, because if all I'm feeling is the heat, I'm not enjoying the food.

spicy food

[j-e-richards.livejournal.com]

My husband, Bill, just offered me a bite of one of his Christmas Stocking presents...Rothchild's Horseradish pretzels...Wow...Not for the faint of heart, but very tasty..gradual burn..

Elaine

[palenoue.livejournal.com]

I'm firmly in the medium category. Heat has its place and when used right makes the meal a delightful experience. Used wrong and it's like an uninvited dominatrix humiliating your taste buds for hours on end.

One thing I've learned long ago is to always demand details when someone asks "Do you like a little heat?" Some people's "little heat" turns out to be habanero concentrate

Anyone else remember that Dork Tower comic with the punch line "Pain isn't a flavor!"

[redaxe.livejournal.com]

I'm a moderate in terms of heat. I enjoy it, to a certain extent (a good Gen. Tso's, for example), but find that too much of it blows away all the flavor -- in which case, what's the point?

And, of course, some heat is more tolerable than others. Chilis are generally more tolerable than horseradish, for some reason; garlic (as I mentioned above) is usually no problem except when I hit a really hot chunk, etc.

I don't usually get to cook with much heat, though, because the rest of the family dislikes it. So it's reserved for ordering and eating out.

[timemachineyeah.livejournal.com]

When my older brother had his wisdom teeth removed they accidentally clipped a nerve, removing the most of the taste from one side of his tongue (temporarily, but it did take several years to heal properly) and as a result we wound up eating LOTS of spicy foods because it's one of the few things he could really taste. He would also challenge the unknowing to spice-eating contests and as long as his kept the food on the proper side of his mouth could down just about anything.

The consequence of this was a bunch of younger siblings with a huge love and tolerance for hot and spicy foods. We recently went to a restaurant together and the waitress was shocked to find us all, without discussing it earlier, ordering buffalo wings extra-hot.

I'm sure I have a threshold somewhere and just haven't found it yet, but I absolutely love the feel and taste of spicy foods.

Even if you do need a huge glass of water to accompany them sometimes.

[unclelumpy.livejournal.com]

My heat tolerance, food-wise?

Well, my favorite food IS Buffalo wings. The problem is, while I like them REALLY hot, that usually means they have to be DRENCHED in sauce, and that usually takes away from it, in my opinion.

My friend, Maureen, puts me to SHAME, though! She has this lovely story she likes to tell about a certain Thai restaurant she used to frequent in her College days where she got the chef to come bursting out of the kitchen screaming!

[dr-zrfq.livejournal.com]

I have a friend who grew up in south Louisiana and Southeast Asia. His favorite story of a Thai place we used to frequent, was of his first visit there. They didn't believe that someone who looked like Denzel Washington would really want "Thai Hot" ... he sent it back saying "Make it the way you all make it when *you* want it *REALLY* hot!" They did... and he said "This is good, but I want it still hotter; where's the relish tray?"

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

I love the flavor of Buffalo wings, but I vastly prefer either boneless tenders or shrimp (for me, the effort-to-reward ratio on wings just ain't worth it). Mild, yes, but damn that flavor, and the burn when it's Just Right, are addictive as all get-out.

[the-s-guy.livejournal.com]

The other half has, after many years, gotten me up to the level of mild curry. Sometimes even medium, if I'm feeling daring.

She, on the other hand, used to order the hottest option whenever we had Indian. At least up until last year, when she ordered 'really hot' at a new place and the waiter returned with her meal and a barely concealed grin. After she'd bounced off the ceiling, she put the rest to one side, but still spent the next half an hour giggling.

In the kitchen of that place there must have been a sealed lead canister which could only be moved using long-handled grips, a lead apron, and welding goggles. Probably labelled "For taking customers down a peg."

[blueeyedtigress.livejournal.com]

For me, it really depends upon what kind of "hot" you're talking about:

Hot-Spicy (ginger, cinnamon, etc) -- bring it on!
Hot-Garlic -- the more the better!

Hot-Peppery -- oog, not so much. Not any, actually, thanks.
Hot-Wasabi -- Do Not Want!

Hot vs. spicy

[birder2.livejournal.com]

I cannot tolerate hot-in-the-sense of lots of caspacian. It has nothing to do with whether or not I like it, but rather if it hits the back of my throat wrong, I go into a laryngal spasm in which I cannot breathe. Not a good thing. If you ever see me gasping, trying frantically to breathe, do not try the Heimlich manuver, get me water! or milk or something. I'm not as bad as some friends who think if it's been in the same room as a chili pepper it's too hot, but my tolerance if limited. On the other hand, spicy in the cinnamin-ginger-nutmeg and cloves sense is wonderful.

[jannyblue.livejournal.com]

Depends on what it is. I've sometimes eaten pepporcini peppers as snack-foods, but I have been known to balk at General Tso's. (Unless it's UN-breaded)

The Mango-Habernaro wings at Buffalo Wild Wings are the hottest I've ever gone. They have a lovely sweet flavor, until you suddenly can't taste anything. They're also useful as a display of bravado, but I find I have to work up to it.

I don't care for regular "hot" hot-wings. Even though they're lower on the "burn scale" than a habernaro, all you taste is "HOT!!!!!!!!!" (But "mild" or "medium" drenched in blue cheese? YUM!!!)

Mustard or horseradish though? Bring it ON!!!

[acelightning.livejournal.com]

I can't stand MILD peppers

[pickledcritter.livejournal.com]

I'm one of those weird chili heads - I actually can't stand the taste peppers any *milder* than Serranos (~15,000 to 23,000 on the Scoville scale) unless they've been well roasted.

I don't know if it was mentioned earlier, but you can build up a tolerance to peppers. I'm addicted to the endorphin rush, and with the tolerance build-up, it takes hotter and hotter peppers to get that same rush. Habaneros/Scotch Bonnets/Red Savinas are my favorite, and not just because of the heat. They have a nice fruity flavor that a lot of the other peppers don't have. And yes, my wife says I'm sick for being able to taste a flavor from them :)

The downside that others sort of alluded to is that I have to have my wife (or some other vic..er volunteer) do the tasting when I'm making a spicy dish for others - I'm no longer able to tell what might be "normal".

My favorite sauce is the "Howlin' Mad" roasted habanero hot sauce that the chain Smokey Bones has. Sadly, they closed a bunch of locations including all of the ones in Memphis. I would have one of their pulled pork sandwiches and make a mixture of half barbecue sauce/half Howlin' Mad sauce...ah, paradise.

Levy Restaurants, of course...

[sciffy-circo.livejournal.com]

Jumping Jesus on a Pogo Stick, the place doing it is my old company, Levy Restaurants...

Of course, they'd do anything for publicity these days...

Meanwhile, I'll still have my Buffalo Wild Wings. I don't like their Caribbean Jerk (I don't like pepper), but I do like the Mango Habernero. I don't see the point in Blazin' on it's own, but it gives a nice kick to Chef Boyardee. For some odd reason, sometimes the Spicy Garlic gets to me. I think it's some sort of allergy that just makes my upper lip all red, dry, and rash-like, and I THINK it might be oregano. Irritating, but not enough to keep me from eating favorite foods!

Also, I like sushi and wasabi. Just don't care for onions or peppers. I like the flavor of szechwan and kung pao whatever, but I don't gulp down the actual peppers. Meanwhile, I put jalapenos on all sorts of things, and they never seem to bother me in the slightest. I'm just weird, I guess.

[judifilksign.livejournal.com]

Indian hot is wonderful. Mexican hot gives me nosebleeds, go figure. I'm a wimp.