Poll: Some like it hot

Among any group of food enthusiasts, one usually finds a sharp divide of "chiliheads" from those with more "refined" palates. Brian's recent post makes me think that there might be more chiliheads here than simple demographics would justify. So, how hot do you like it?

For those who do like spicy foods, a related question: what's the hottest food you can recall eating? In my case, it was a Chicken Xacutti (a Goanese dish) ordered in an Indian restaurant in Bath, England that had me hiccuping for 30 minutes (my standard reaction to very hot foods).

Mark Lipton
Chilihead extraordinaire

1. Korean whole fish in Dallas TX. Kobawoo. They asked me three times, and I said hot was okay. Took me days to recover.

2. Some Thai dish. I remember three types of distinct peppers: green, red, and those little black threads.

3. Popped what I thought was a "regular" giardinera in Matamoros. Popped it whole in my mouth. Didn't realize it was a wole habanero/scotch bonnet and part of another pepper...until it was too late. Could not see for 15 minutes. Took burnt toast, overbrewed black tea, and lots of tequila (the tequila didn't help with the burn; it helped anesthetize me).

And I don't consider myself a chilihead either. Some jalaps, some sriracha, some Cholula, some Tabasco...that's okay. And I don't really mind crying and sweating profusely when I eat (yes, I have seen endorphins, and they are good). But "to the pain"? No, thanks.

For those who do like spicy foods, a related question: what's the hottest food you can recall eating?

I've told this story about my hottest food experience before, but I will repeat it for the newer members of the board...

Probably my first experience with Thai food. It was at some restaurant called “Thai It, You’ll Like It” or some corny name like that. We ordered off the menu and when the waiter asked about the heat level (on a flame scale of 1-5) we all picked five because we were dumb college kids that did not know any better. About three bites into our meals we started gulping down cold water. The waiter returned and asked, “Mo water?” As we battled to get through the meal we kept emptying our glasses of water and the waiter would return and ask us if we wanted “Mo water”. Finally with half full plates we admitted defeat and asked the waiter for our check. He asked us if we wanted anything wrapped up to take home. We all shook our heads no and told the waiter the food was so hot it was almost inedible. The waiter snatched the check holder off the table and said, “Dat why I tell you NO WATER!!!” Water make it worse but you not listen and keep drinking ice water!”

Oh. Heh, heh, heh. No water.

I'm definitely in the mild camp with salsas or spices. I'm much more a fan of "seasonings" than spices/heat. I just don't enjoy overly hot foods because it distracts me from the taste and flavor of what I would otherwise be tasting. Much like it's too physically unpleasant to the mouth and tongue to drink burning hot coffee in the temperature sense, I like things that are a bit "cooled down" and mellow generally speaking.

One of my earlier posts regarding why there is so many "smoking hot this or that" potato chip flavors indirectly touched on this non-hot preference of mine. But seeing the popularity of these flavors along with the success of foods such as spicy chicken wings etc and I realize that I must just be in a "bland" minority.

Now I love chili myself but the LESS spicy the better in my book. Seasonings and flavor, yes! Too many spices or heat, no! But I suppose something like chili has no less than about 2 million definitions of what's definitive...

Jeff

I love Melinda's XXX! And I have on more than one occasion, eaten a fresh habanero right out of the garden. Not often, though.

I had to vote for the middle ground, although it pains me more to put an "X" in for Pace salsa than it would to eat a habanero. I don't mind some spice but I find I just don't enjoy the experience when a dish gets really hot. I will therefore order conservatively in Thai restaurants and such. That's kept me from any good stories regarding wildly hot food.

I'm also one of the people who likes flavor but not necessarily heat, because I find it distracts from the flavor.

I can take a little bit of heat (more than my Northern German wife who considers garlic a wild and exotic spice) but for the most part I like ingredients and preparations with strong deep flavors: like garlic, onions, tomatoes, eggplant, roasted potatoes as opposed to boiled, etc. And I like to taste the ingredients themselves, not the spice.

That said, my first day in Singapore I had some spicy soup at a hawker stand that was by far and away the spiciest thing I had ever eaten. This was about 10 years ago but the memory is still with me! In the States, I would get some spicy foods at restaurants but even if it was spicy and uncomfortable the pain would go away after a few minutes. However, this soup in Singapore blasted through my mouth from the first sip and I knew there was no way my mouth would ever recover. It was exponentially hotter than anything I had ever eaten.

Great memories!

Even though it was explained to me by an Indian friend who said hot food makes one sweat and thus cools one off, I have never been able to relate to eating super hot foods in hot climates such as India or Thailand. This time of year when it is brutally cold, I find comfort in the fiery hot dishes. During the dog days of summer, I stick with “cool” foods.

Does anyone else feel the same way?

I also ticked the "Pace" option. I do eat Szechuan, etc., but I really am in it for the perfume, not the sting. If there's too much sting then it all tastes the same.

I have never tried the Chinese dish with the fish served awash in hot sauce... and little black seeds that numb your tongue!

This time of year when it is brutally cold, I find comfort in the fiery hot dishes. During the dog days of summer, I stick with “cool” foods.

Does anyone else feel the same way?

I do think there's some natural truth to that.

In my case it's not so much fiery foods but I definitely find I'm more likely to enjoy WARM meals, home-cooked meals or warm beverages during these chilly winter months.

Coffees are, for me, probably the most dramatic and seasonal items. I enjoy espresso based coffees/mochas yet I find I will have far more ICED coffees during the summer and then suddenly will settle into the traditional warm ones during winter.

Interestingly though, when I'm having my iced tea or a soda, I don't find I consume them any less in the winter necessarily. I know that one of Coca Cola's historic steps to becoming a "universal" and year round beverage, came during the Depression years when they really focused the winter/holidays marketing of the drink. They found that in certain locations, they were selling more Cokes in the WINTER than the summer. Whether the habit just naturally arose from consumers or from a combination of good and persistent marketing, who knows for sure. But the result is Coca Cola, as just one exception, came to be so easily known and consumed as an "anytime/any season" drink that today we don't even find it the slightest bit unusal that it would be enjoyed as much in winter as in the summer. Whether you're in the Sahara or the North Pole, the famous bottle will equally please.

So I guess there are conflicts of "foods" between the seasons you'd expect them to most thrive in.

But I agree that generally I follow the warm foods in winter/more cool foods in summer pattern myself.
Jeff

Even though it was explained to me by an Indian friend who said hot food makes one sweat and thus cools one off, I have never been able to relate to eating super hot foods in hot climates such as India or Thailand. This time of year when it is brutally cold, I find comfort in the fiery hot dishes. During the dog days of summer, I stick with “cool” foods.

Does anyone else feel the same way?

I do. I've always felt that that logic is faulty, and that the truth lies more in the fact that tasty chiles and so forth grow in those climates where summer heat is greater, and ripen during the hot season.

[Jenise]

Dave R, I think your Indian friend is nuts! Had an elderly Scottish friend who lived in Palm Springs and made the same claim about drinking coffee at lunch on a 100 degree day--more likely, I always thought, that her coffee habit was very well developed before she moved to the desert. I personally find the opposite to be true: I drink warm drinks to stay warm and cool drinks to cool off. When I lived in Southern California, during the hottest days of summer I'd get up in the morning and go straight to iced tea.

I picked Sriracha catergory. I love hot stuff, but still can't tolerate anything that is extremely hot. Although, as I eat more and more hot stuff, it seems like my tolerance for it is going up...anyone else experience this? I feel like I am adding more hot sauce to stuff than I used to.

The 2 hottest meals I ever had was a curry at an Indian restuarant, which was just so hot, I couldn't eat more than a few bites of it. The 2nd time was when my husband and I got some chicken wings from Cluck-U and they must have mistakenly given us a hotter sauce because these were inedible (and we've had wings from them before).

[David M. Bueker]

I picked Sriracha as well, but it really depends on what I am doing. If I am out with guys after golf or on a business trip & not going to be drinking great wine then pile on the spice. My local Asian BYO occasionally tries to spice me to death. They almost succeeded once.

I picked Sriracha.

I remember ordering some sort of cream of chicken soup (Tom Yum or some such) at a local Thai place. Figured it would be harmless. It came with pieces of bark sticking out of the soup and I could not choke down the entire bowl. Really really hot. But the hottest -- we ate at Vatan, an Indian restaurant in Manhattan. I love Indian food, this place is Gujarati, and the dishes are really tasty. But the thing to watch out for is Indian pickles, you really never know what you are getting into. One dish they brought in the pickle course looked like pickled green beans. I popped one in my mouth, gave it a couple of chews, and swallowed it. Then the burning started, hotter and hotter, my tongue, my palate, my throat, and then I could feel it burning away the lining of my stomach. It was some sort of diabolical green chili. There was nothing to do at that point, I was carrying this flaming ball of hotness inside me. I drank liquids, I think there was some yogurt. Nearly ruined the evening for me but I felt better eventually and had a good meal.

PS rereading this makes me think of Ralphie on The Simpsons. "I eated the purple berries. They taste like -- burning"

[Jenise]

I picked Sriracha as well, but it really depends on what I am doing. If I am out with guys after golf or on a business trip & not going to be drinking great wine then pile on the spice. My local Asian BYO occasionally tries to spice me to death. They almost succeeded once.

I picked Sriracha too---I love a good medium hot but I don't enjoy being burned alive, and of course if wine's around the max temperature requires containment. Hot is for beer.

Even I picked Sriracha for everyday dining, although Thai fish sauce with chiles floating in the bowl is my ideal food substance.

On a related note...is the love for high glutamate fish sauce related to a preference for savory wines?

Even I picked Sriracha for everyday dining, although Thai fish sauce with chiles floating in the bowl is my ideal food substance.

On a related note...is the love for high glutamate fish sauce related to a preference for savory wines?

Umami, baby! So the answer is yes.

Mark Lipton

I guess I am in the minority but I don't find Siracha all that hot. We keep a collection of Dave's sauces on hand at all times and will often add a few drops of the insanity sauce to kick up the heat in dishes. That being said, it seems that we eat less of the hot and spicy these days but when we do it needs to have a kick.

What I can't take is a sauce like Big Daddy's http://www.bigdaddysbbq.net/sauces.html where its not just hot but it seems to stick to one's tongue regardless of what you do. I have an assortment of these sauces and find the hotter ones completely unusable regardless of how little one uses.

I picked Sriracha too.

I like to taste things (especially if wine is involved). With the hotter end of the spectrum, you don't really taste food, the food is inflicted on you and I swear that people could only do it for some perverse satisfaction in living through the experience. I guess I have no inclination toward palate flagellation

Speak for yourself; that's your opinion--and one I've heard for years from people with Minnesota-type palates (is there a speck of black pepper in this bowl of mashed potatoes?). Higher levels of capsacin produce endorphins, which are enjoyable, not some sort of self-flagellation. Perhaps I wouldn't like the level of salt or sugar that you use--levels that your tongue gets used to. How can you taste the food with so much salt?

You get acclimated to capsacin. For example, if you would visit a chile packing plant, you'd have to wear a mask to keep from choking, but the workers don't wear masks. That's acclimation.

Speak for yourself; that's your opinion--and one I've heard for years from people with Minnesota-type palates (is there a speck of black pepper in this bowl of mashed potatoes?). Higher levels of capsacin produce endorphins, which are enjoyable, not some sort of self-flagellation. Perhaps I wouldn't like the level of salt or sugar that you use--levels that your tongue gets used to. How can you taste the food with so much salt?

You get acclimated to capsacin. For example, if you would visit a chile packing plant, you'd have to wear a mask to keep from choking, but the workers don't wear masks. That's acclimation.

You seem to be overlooking tha fact that for some of us, food normally includes a wine component and that you can't enjoy wine with anything that gets up into the really hot end of the spectrum.

PS - as far as salt and sugar, I use as close to zero of each as is practicable, and I agree that people that overdose on either deprive themselves of the ability to taste a dish. Why do you not apply that same logic to the heat in food?

Simply because I can still taste the food. To make a point: why don't you use more salt to enhance your food? To some of us it would taste really bland. But each to his own, I say.

BTW, if you really want to gin up the heat component, have a sip of coffee when you're eating hot food.

In a few weeks I'll be attending the annual Fiery Foods Festival and having a great time experiencing the rush of endorphins. I'll raise a toast of beer there to you. Hot! Hot! Hot!

Simply because I can still taste the food. To make a point: why don't you use more salt to enhance your food? To some of us it would taste really bland. But each to his own, I say.

BTW, if you really want to gin up the heat component, have a sip of coffee when you're eating hot food.

In a few weeks I'll be attending the annual Fiery Foods Festival and having a great time experiencing the rush of endorphins. I'll raise a toast of beer there to you. Hot! Hot! Hot!

I tasted some food soem Vietnamese friends had done once and it wasn't taste, it was more a sensation of having tried to swallow molten lead! Youch! I know that one can become acclimated to almost anything - you must customarily eat hotter food than many. Do you ever try to enjoy wine with it - I can't imagine it would be worth the trouble, but hey, what do I know, maybe it is.

Tell me - what does coffee do when you've had spicy food? I can't recall offhand.

And with salt I find that prepared foods generally use FAR too much salt in things like canned soups etc. I enjoy salt as an accent, but nowhere near the degree that they use it in lots of commercial stuff. I have friends that grab the salt shaker without tasting and I think that you also acclimate to those increased levels and need more and more to have the same effect on their palates. I liek salt on eggs, foie gras etc., but am used to not having much on most foods and don't miss it. Similarly, I can't stand sweet sauces on most things, which I am sure probably goes against the average taste.

Do post your experiences after the Fiery Foods Festival so we wimps can vicariously enjoy the experience!