How hot do you like your salsa?

[David M. Bueker]

Made a batch yesterday with the proceeds of the weekly CSA share. With roasted jalapeños and some fresh Serrano chiles it has more than a little bit of a kick. Love it!

Sounds like my kind of salsa!

[Jenise]

If wine isn't on the program, then I like it a whole lot hotter!

[Robin Garr]

I agree with Jenise about whether there's wine on the table or not. But that said, Mary doesn't like it as hot as I do. This usually works out well when they deliver hot and mild, and we each grab our own molcajete.

I'm pretty wimpy when it comes to peppers. I like a little heat in my salsa but not too much. For me, it's just painful when it's too spicy. Whatever endorphin kick I get out of it isn't worth it.

I'm with Mike on this one!

[Robin Garr]

Now, here's an interesting (slight) digression. I'm not sure if this deserves its own thread, but it strikes me as worth exploring: Do you have a bright-line heat limit, or does it vary depending on the food? The reason I ask, it occurred to me in thinking about Jenise's question that I don't really care for salsa past medium heat, but I'll accept more heat in Mexican dishes than in salsa; more heat in Indian-Pakistani-Bangladeshi curries than in salsa; and more heat in Thai food than in Indian curries. I'm not sure why this is ... something about experience in the genre, and something about the mitigating effect of other ingredients and stir-fries. Am I the only one who has a variable heat meter depending on what I'm eating?

I'm not sure the region necessarily has much to do with how I think of the cuisine, but to the extent that I use prepared spice mixtures, the Thai ones tend to be hotter than the Chinese. (Haven't found any good Indian spice pastes at my stores that aren't loaded up with crap ingredients)

[David M. Bueker]

Stick to the dry spices for Indian.

[Jenise]

Do you have a bright-line heat limit, or does it vary depending on the food? The reason I ask, it occurred to me in thinking about Jenise's question that I don't really care for salsa past medium heat, but I'll accept more heat in Mexican dishes .... Am I the only one who has a variable heat meter depending on what I'm eating?

Probably not. For me, it depends pretty much on everything. That is, I prize complexity above everything else but I also regard complexity as not just one moment within a dish so much as an arena of experiences possible within a given meal. Too, not all chiles heat up the same: some start out big and fade quickly (like habanero), where others sneak up on you and last. And then I like yin and yang: so when we order Thai or Indian foods, I order a variety of heats so that there's both heat and relief on the same plate in the way salsa puts heat into a taco whose other ingredients are usually otherwise cool or relatively benign.

IOW it's situational, but overall I do have a higher tolerance for heat than most people I'm around, including my husband, while having nothing close to the tolerance I believe Paul Winalski has.

I'm closer to having a bright line irrespective of the cuisine. There's a level of heat that's just too much whether it's salsa or Thai curry or Texas chili. The type of pepper does make a difference for me, though. Heat that dissipates fairly quickly is more tolerable than heat that builds and builds.

I have a bright-ish line. When the tingling and burning supersede the flavors, then I don't want it anymore.

Hard to describe the threshold in quantitative terms, of course, but I'll try:
- I have given up ordering vindaloo.
- I like middle-of-the-road Szechuan and Thai dishes.
- I will occasionally reach for cayenne or dundicuts (and lesser ones, of course) but I pretty much never reach for habaneros.


Jeff

[David M. Bueker]

Good points about heat building versus absolute heat level. I can handle just about any level of heat in a short burst. the heat that build and sustains is a different matter though.

1 - it isn't just wine that is affected by too hot spices, it is everything you eat after that. If you aren't going to eat anything other than fast food or generic fodder for a day after, go for it. If you are going to have something that a cook has taken care over, you insult them if you first cripple your sense of taste before eating it. It would be like showing up for your friend's violin recital with ear plugs in.

2 - I have never been sure I 'got' the point of really hot food. Is it a macho thing, where drinking buddies admire the one that east the hottest pepper? If so, puerile trumps sense. Strong flavours, sure, not all the time, but once in awhile, and never to the point where your sense of taste is impaired for a significant time.

3 - to answer the original question, tolerance levels vary considerably and change with exposure and age. I'm a lot more tolerant of heat than my wife, but as you may gather from what I said above, I choose not to test the limits of that tolerance. Doing so is like the kids that go to a rock concert, sit in the front few rows and suffer temporary hearing loss for a day or two as a result.

I guess one man's fun is another masochism.

[David M. Bueker]

Given that I have no accomplished violin players as friends I will most certainly wear earplugs to any recitals!

If you ever visit Vancouver, I'll play the bagpipes for you. Haven't played them in years, but I'm sure it would come back to me.........

[David M. Bueker]

Did I mention I have recently been banned from Canada?

Did I mention I have recently been banned from Canada?

Was it that thing with the beaver......? We take that pretty seriously up here!

[David M. Bueker]

Nope. It was a wolverine.

Bill,
To answer your queries, there is most certainly a macho "the hotter, the better" culture. The single hottest dish I've ever had was a Chicken Xacuti consumed in Bath, England. When I expressed my incredulity at finding such hot food in a country as spice-challenged as England, I was told that every curry house will have one dish on their menu for the drunken rugby players who come in and order "your 'ottest curry." Equally, though, sensitivity to capsaicin varies enough that one person's "blazing hot" is another's "mild." Both Jean and I eat very spicy food, though my tolerance is a notch higher than her own. At the level of heat I prefer, it's not in the least painful to me and merely stimulates the palate. Even so, I find that wines with some amount of RS pair much better with those foods than dry wines.

Mark Lipton

When I expressed my incredulity at finding such hot food in a country as spice-challenged as England,

as spice-challenged as England? As opposed to where -- Indiana?

My flabber is ghasted.

There's 4000+ Indian restaurants in England, plus Thai and other such cuisines.

And every restaurant here has English mustard -- try and get hot mustard in an American restuarant.

[Jenise]

Peter, I once lived in England. It's also where I became introduced to Indian food (instant love). Granted, that was many years ago, but it was nonetheless absolutely true that where yes, Indian food was indeed spicy/much beloved/and available all over the place, all true English food was relatively bland and plain (devoid of garlic, herbs and spices, not just heat) to a Los Angeleno like me and that actually extended to all ethnic food EXCEPT Indian. Now maybe that was an exceptionally northern England experience (food got even plainer the further north one went in those days), and I'm sure things have changed for the better since, but I could have made the same statement Mark did and my impression would have been well and justly earned. If dated.