There is definitely a cultural factor at play here, and I'm absolutely not surprised to read this in the Guardian.
As a French expat in London, I find the British crazy in love with chilli. I'm unfortunately not, and it's a daily struggle when grocery shopping or eating out because it will rear its ugly spicy head everywhere you least expected it : from soup to confectionery, nothing seems off limits!
With a few notable exceptions, I liken the use of chilli in cuisine to gratuitous violence in movies : a lazy fix for bland meals that otherwise wouldn't stand on their own feet. A smokescreen of burnt tastebuds to hide behind. A pain that I'm aware (but can't understand why) many people enjoy inflicting unto themselves.
Sorry for the (slightly tongue in cheek) harsh words : I have an axe to grind with chilli ever since I walked into the confectionery aisle of my local supermarket for the first time, shortly after I moved here.
Naively looking for my standard French/Belgian fare of dark chocolate with roasted almonds, hazelnut, or rice, I found nothing of the sort. Instead, what they had on offer was perfectly good chocolate laced with Wasabi, of all things ! Wasabi ! And yes, you guessed it, chilli.
I suppose that's the same sinking feeling British expats in France experience the first time they hear French rock'n'roll / hip-hop on the radio.
> I liken the use of chilli in cuisine to gratuitous violence in movies : a lazy fix for bland meals that otherwise wouldn't stand on their own feet. A smokescreen of burnt tastebuds to hide behind. A pain that I'm aware (but can't understand why) many people enjoy inflicting unto themselves.
Tyler Cowen is my go-to explainer for spicy food:
Mexicans acculturate their small children to spicy food gradually, by mixing increasing amounts of chilies into the meal. It takes a while before the kids enjoy it and at first they don't like it. If this has never been done to you, you need to make the leap yourself, usually later in life. The whole point of spicy food is that at first it is painful, causing the release of endorphins to the brain. With time the pain goes away and you still get the endorphins, although you may seek out an increasingly strong dose to boost the endorphin response.
Not all Americans think this is a good deal. Older people are less likely to make this initial investment and endure the initial pain. The same is true for uneducated people (adjusting for ethnicity), who both are less likely to know it will end up being a source of pleasure and who on average have higher discount rates. What other predictions can be made? If you and your country are too obsessed with dairy you will be led away from spicy food, one way or the other. Milk usually counteracts the pleasing effects of chilies.
Chili peppers can be used to compensate for otherwise poor flavor, but that is certainly not the only use case. Fat sugar salt and other spices can be used like that too.
If British food is obnoxiously spicy to you, you're probably very unaccustomed to spicy food.
When someone is accustomed to piquant foods, they aren't distracted as easily by the heat. Different peppers have very different flavor and spice profiles that are easier to pick up when you don't have to immediately drown out with milk. They also don't come through in small quantities, so if you haven't been desensitized you wont be eating enough to taste the other flavors.
I understand your frustration but I think you're being a tad unfair to chilli lovers with your gratuitous violence comparison. If all I'm getting out of a spicy dish is 'hot' then it's either a shit dish or I'm eating something hotter than I should be.
Thanks for making me laugh out loud (in a good way).
Let me give an analogy from music. Something is good rock music not just because it is loud and has fast shredding. That music is indeed probably crap and just hiding its lack of talent imagination and quality. However that does not mean all loud rock is crap, far from it. It takes a while to distinguish.
Good hot food is not cheap music stuck forever in it faux earnest chorus and mastered poorly onto a cd locked in on high db. That said there is a lot of such food around.
Both chocolate and chili peppers are native to the Americas, and both have been pairs for centuries. Also, both cause a release of serotonin, and it's believed that capsaicin is soluble in fat, which is in chocolate (maybe smoothing out the heat effect, allowing one to taste the chili?).
Have you had much in the way of East/South Asian foods or Latin American foods?
Speaking for the various Chinese culinary traditions because that's what I grew up with, the spiciness is usually integral to the overall flavor and mouthfeel of the dish. Szechuan food (traditionally spicy) without spice tastes off balance, as does Cantonese food (traditionally mild) with extra spiciness.
My experience with French food has been that it generally avoids significant spiciness, which is fine, but it also means that the recipes are not crafted with spiciness in mind. Szechuan recipes are definitely crafted with spiciness in mind.
I remember reading that that the English love for spices started very early and that this made English cuisine distinct from French cuisine even as far back as the Middle Ages.
I absolutely love all things hot. I am especially fond of a growing number of hot sauces I can find that don't come with 10% of your daily sodium allowance in a single serving.
Same. Recently I've been on a kick for New Orleans style vinegar/habanero sauce. I'm growing my own habaneros now, it's super simple to make. Plus I have a bunch of old bottles that I saved to fill with my own hot sauce.
I'm a capsaicin addict. I have a bottle of Reaper Squeezins in my fridge. The heat makes eating more of an event. It wakes me up more than coffee. Nothing makes you live in the moment more than acute physical pain. It's a strange pleasure. I'm not a masochist in any other realm. On a strange note, I'm a oral tobacco user and I swear that capsaicin followed by chew enhances nicotine absorption.
The article is missing a key point. I love chillies, ginger, horseradish, etc. And sure, I'm an adrenaline junky, and sometimes too macho. But I have learned a key thing about eating hot food: It's far more fun if you ramp up the burn gradually. The pain transforms into something else, more like pleasure. Just as it does with sex. And I do believe that other flavors taste better on top of the burn.
Milk is a decent antidote for overexposure. Better is yogurt. And even better is yogurt with mint and cucumber, one of the standard raitas. Or yogurt and banana.
There's this joke that may have originated in a Cheech and Chong movie ("Up in Smoke") that you should have ice cream after eating anything really spicy. The idea is that a day later when your spicy meal is making its exit, you can say "come on ice cream"[1] expecting the ice cream to cool things down for you.
About a thirty minute drive from me is Sunni Sky's[2] ice cream in Angier, NC. They have a flavor called Cold Sweat[3] which includes among other things ghost pepper extract.
They require you to sign a waiver[4] before letting you taste it.
Then they ask you if you want the baby taste or the real taste. Assuming you go for the real taste (as I did), in addition to handing you a mouthful of Cold Sweat, they are standing by with a second spoonful of vanilla for putting out the fire in your mouth.
Now I like really spicy food. I'll order things as hot as they'll let me in most Thai restaurants. So I was able to finish the full size taste of Cold Sweat they gave me, but there is no possible way I could have eaten a full scoop.
After finishing my taste, I glance up at their menu and notice a flavor called "Exit Wound." Upon asking what it is, they tell me it's about twice as hot as Cold Sweat.
Let me just say about these flavors: ice cream won't save you this time[5].
The flavor has made the local news[6] and Food TV[7].
I remember reading that dairy-based "antidotes" such as milk or yoghurt aren't ideal, especially as you get spicier, and that a better option is sugary water. Unfortunately, I don't quite remember the chemical/physical justification for this; something along the lines of the fats in dairy products just coating the spices in your mouth temporarily, while sugar actually absorbs and washes it away.
A bit off-topic, but since you mention spelling: "habañero" is one of my favourite hyperforeignisms in the English language. Wikipedia even uses it as an example in the first paragraph here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperforeignism . Such an interesting linguistic phenomenon!
I'm sure it's a real enough thing for people out there. Me, though, I've never cracked that code: What is it, why does everybody get all exited about all this taste stuff? Sure, some things taste good, some things taste bad, there's stuff I like to eat, and stuff I wouldn't touch with a ten foot spoon, but honestly, it's just ... food.
Apparently, I'm at odds with most people on this. Friends have a really hard time accepting that I mean it when I say I have no preference for what we are going to eat (well, I'll skip the meat, but otherwise), or indeed, whether we are going to eat anything - can't we just grab some bananas if we're hungry?
Of course, this also generally leaves me less than enthusiastic about eating at restaurants. Basically money out the window in my stymied view of the world.
Spicy food is my favorite, especially Thai cuisine. I eat red curry "Thai Hot" from a local Thai place at least once a week. I'm hopelessly addicted to it, though my friends can't see how I can stomach that level of spice.
A local Thai restaurant was my favorite too, until a real Sichuan restaurant opened up. The numbing of the Sichuan peppercorns allows you to eat even more chilies. So addicting.
Is it not also true that spicy foods elicit an immune and metabolic response? Given that won't achieve anything, insofar as the spiciness is concerned at least, perhaps the effects of these are nonetheless felt to be favourable.
People love to try to appear to be exceptional in some way. Some people think that by eating food which is difficult to consume without first accustoming themselves, they will be able to distinguish themselves from the common herd. My feeling about this is antagonistic to their unwarranted self-regard; by attempting to earmark themselves merely by the act of consuming a food, they instead display their mediocrity.
There will always be people that make an ego-grab out of anything. As a New Mexican native, I can tell you there's plenty of chile lovers that honestly love the flavor. I love chile so much on its own right. In my opinion, the flavor is as complex as vanilla. In the right context chile tastes downright sweet. If you add chile to coffee or chocolate it can taste floral.
[+] [-] renaudg|8 years ago|reply
As a French expat in London, I find the British crazy in love with chilli. I'm unfortunately not, and it's a daily struggle when grocery shopping or eating out because it will rear its ugly spicy head everywhere you least expected it : from soup to confectionery, nothing seems off limits!
With a few notable exceptions, I liken the use of chilli in cuisine to gratuitous violence in movies : a lazy fix for bland meals that otherwise wouldn't stand on their own feet. A smokescreen of burnt tastebuds to hide behind. A pain that I'm aware (but can't understand why) many people enjoy inflicting unto themselves.
Sorry for the (slightly tongue in cheek) harsh words : I have an axe to grind with chilli ever since I walked into the confectionery aisle of my local supermarket for the first time, shortly after I moved here.
Naively looking for my standard French/Belgian fare of dark chocolate with roasted almonds, hazelnut, or rice, I found nothing of the sort. Instead, what they had on offer was perfectly good chocolate laced with Wasabi, of all things ! Wasabi ! And yes, you guessed it, chilli.
I suppose that's the same sinking feeling British expats in France experience the first time they hear French rock'n'roll / hip-hop on the radio.
[+] [-] Steko|8 years ago|reply
Tyler Cowen is my go-to explainer for spicy food:
Mexicans acculturate their small children to spicy food gradually, by mixing increasing amounts of chilies into the meal. It takes a while before the kids enjoy it and at first they don't like it. If this has never been done to you, you need to make the leap yourself, usually later in life. The whole point of spicy food is that at first it is painful, causing the release of endorphins to the brain. With time the pain goes away and you still get the endorphins, although you may seek out an increasingly strong dose to boost the endorphin response.
Not all Americans think this is a good deal. Older people are less likely to make this initial investment and endure the initial pain. The same is true for uneducated people (adjusting for ethnicity), who both are less likely to know it will end up being a source of pleasure and who on average have higher discount rates. What other predictions can be made? If you and your country are too obsessed with dairy you will be led away from spicy food, one way or the other. Milk usually counteracts the pleasing effects of chilies.
[+] [-] SerLava|8 years ago|reply
If British food is obnoxiously spicy to you, you're probably very unaccustomed to spicy food.
When someone is accustomed to piquant foods, they aren't distracted as easily by the heat. Different peppers have very different flavor and spice profiles that are easier to pick up when you don't have to immediately drown out with milk. They also don't come through in small quantities, so if you haven't been desensitized you wont be eating enough to taste the other flavors.
[+] [-] Trundle|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] srean|8 years ago|reply
Let me give an analogy from music. Something is good rock music not just because it is loud and has fast shredding. That music is indeed probably crap and just hiding its lack of talent imagination and quality. However that does not mean all loud rock is crap, far from it. It takes a while to distinguish.
Good hot food is not cheap music stuck forever in it faux earnest chorus and mastered poorly onto a cd locked in on high db. That said there is a lot of such food around.
[+] [-] spc476|8 years ago|reply
I've never heard of wasabi and chocolate though.
[+] [-] srssays|8 years ago|reply
Because Britain lacks a (good) cuisine of its own, we tend to eat exclusively the food of other countries, and those dishes are often spicy.
[+] [-] vram22|8 years ago|reply
Surprised to hear they put chili in confectionery (assuming that is sweet items).
[+] [-] munchbunny|8 years ago|reply
Speaking for the various Chinese culinary traditions because that's what I grew up with, the spiciness is usually integral to the overall flavor and mouthfeel of the dish. Szechuan food (traditionally spicy) without spice tastes off balance, as does Cantonese food (traditionally mild) with extra spiciness.
My experience with French food has been that it generally avoids significant spiciness, which is fine, but it also means that the recipes are not crafted with spiciness in mind. Szechuan recipes are definitely crafted with spiciness in mind.
[+] [-] Wildgoose|8 years ago|reply
Cloves/pepper/ginger - and now chillies.
[+] [-] hfourm|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nathancahill|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Stanleyc23|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 2845197541|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mirimir|8 years ago|reply
Milk is a decent antidote for overexposure. Better is yogurt. And even better is yogurt with mint and cucumber, one of the standard raitas. Or yogurt and banana.
[+] [-] js2|8 years ago|reply
About a thirty minute drive from me is Sunni Sky's[2] ice cream in Angier, NC. They have a flavor called Cold Sweat[3] which includes among other things ghost pepper extract.
They require you to sign a waiver[4] before letting you taste it.
Then they ask you if you want the baby taste or the real taste. Assuming you go for the real taste (as I did), in addition to handing you a mouthful of Cold Sweat, they are standing by with a second spoonful of vanilla for putting out the fire in your mouth.
Now I like really spicy food. I'll order things as hot as they'll let me in most Thai restaurants. So I was able to finish the full size taste of Cold Sweat they gave me, but there is no possible way I could have eaten a full scoop.
After finishing my taste, I glance up at their menu and notice a flavor called "Exit Wound." Upon asking what it is, they tell me it's about twice as hot as Cold Sweat.
Let me just say about these flavors: ice cream won't save you this time[5].
The flavor has made the local news[6] and Food TV[7].
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwyQoLtqB0s
[2] http://www.sunniskys.com
[3] http://www.coldsweaticecream.com
[4] http://www.coldsweaticecream.com/Cold_Sweat_Waiver.htm
[5] http://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2008/02/26/san...
[6] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WL9vXAih2HI
[7] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8oy_zYRTZ0
[+] [-] Xophmeister|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chaseha|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nsxwolf|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] billjings|8 years ago|reply
Chile: the spicy fruit that we use to burn ourselves silly. Jalepeño chile, Habañero chile, etc.
Chile #2: the sauce made in New Mexico from red or green chiles, often Hatch chiles
Chili: a delicious stew made with three primary ingredients:
1. Beef 2. Chiles, either powdered or fresh 3. A very strong opinion as to what constitutes chili
[+] [-] jean-|8 years ago|reply
A bit off-topic, but since you mention spelling: "habañero" is one of my favourite hyperforeignisms in the English language. Wikipedia even uses it as an example in the first paragraph here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperforeignism . Such an interesting linguistic phenomenon!
[+] [-] simplehuman|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ianai|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] interfixus|8 years ago|reply
Apparently, I'm at odds with most people on this. Friends have a really hard time accepting that I mean it when I say I have no preference for what we are going to eat (well, I'll skip the meat, but otherwise), or indeed, whether we are going to eat anything - can't we just grab some bananas if we're hungry?
Of course, this also generally leaves me less than enthusiastic about eating at restaurants. Basically money out the window in my stymied view of the world.
[+] [-] ArlenBales|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] madengr|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Xophmeister|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Clownshoesms|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] DigitalJack|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] iamacynic|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|8 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] nommm-nommm|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Safety1stClyde|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] always_good|8 years ago|reply
Peppers simply heighten the experience of eating, like having your ass slapped during sex.
[+] [-] surrey-fringe|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ianai|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|8 years ago|reply
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