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Can you hurt yourself eating chilli peppers?

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Re: Can you hurt yourself eating chilli peppers?

#151

Post by Broken_Hippo »

tallanvor wrote: post #137
Broken_Hippo wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I generally thought the selection from the Midwest was bad - I'm from Indiana, and always lived in tiny to smallish "medium" sized towns. Often you are at odds with the grocery store, which may or may not carry much else. Most folks first intro to "spicy" food is Taco Bell and the local "authentic" Mexican restaurant. We (Midwesterners) simply haven't usually experienced anything else. Pure ignorance, really. Then I…

Meny usually has a few options, and some of the foreign markets have them as well, at least in Oslo. You can even find Bird's eye chili at Kiwi on occasion. But yeah, Norway is a horrible country for food. You pay an arm and a leg for barely edible stuff, and if you want to get really good ingredients you have to pay double or more!

It is honestly easier to find some ingredients in Oslo than Trondheim from what I've heard (and easier here than in the smaller towns) - probably simply because there are more people there. I find the Norwegian stores to be hit and miss on them: Sometimes Meny has birds eye, sometimes Coop has jalapenos (at the larger stores).

"Norway is a horrible country for food" .... It is a great country to live in if you want to vastly improve your cooking skills, though :)

Re: Can you hurt yourself eating chilli peppers?

#154

Post by dllthomas »

mindcrime wrote: post #124
blhack wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People go for the heat because it's fun. In my refrigerator right now I have a variety of hot sauces ranging from ~100,000SHU (Scoville Heat Units[1]) to 1,500,000SHU. The 1.5M sauce is way, way, WAY too hot to eat regularly, but it is kindof fun to put it on something and then see if you can get through it or not. I would put it in the same vein as playing two podcasts at the same time and seeing if you can comprehe…

Yeah, I use everything from jalapeno pepper to Carolina Reapers and everything in between at various times. I never make anything that's just plain loaded down with nothing but reapers, but I use a mix of peppers to make things that are really hot but also have a nice flavor. The heat just makes things interesting, but heat for its own sake isn't very interesting to me. You could buy pure, refined Capsaicin, but what…

> like "Dave's Insanity" which is hot but nasty

I haven't tried it in a decade, but I remember liking the flavor... although maybe that was their salsa?

Re: Can you hurt yourself eating chilli peppers?

#155

Post by cheiVia0 »

blhack wrote: post #83
huherto wrote: post #11

Mexican here. I find it amusing that people focus on how spicy their peppers are. They are missing the point. There are many pepper varieties and each has a different flavor. That is the interesting part and how it mixes with different foods in a variety of recipes. Focus on the flavor, not the burn.

I think it's kindof funny that people somehow associate Mexican and Indian food with being spicy. I almost think it scares them off of trying some of those dishes. In my experience, Mexican food is rich , but not spicy. Same thing with (some) Indian food. Maybe I'm trying the wrong food, though? I've only traveled in western India (Maharashtra). I would love some recommendations for dishes to try! BBQ (from the US) i…

I'm Eastern European, and for me, an Indian buffet is basically a minefield. If I eat something very spicy, my mouth burns, my taste buds basically go numb, and everything starts to taste the same. I prefer my food "bland" thank you very much :)

Re: Can you hurt yourself eating chilli peppers?

#157

Post by jghn »

cpfohl wrote: post #150
jghn wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to mention there are quite flavorful styles which are often down around 2% ABV which is closer to NA beer than they are to macrolagers. I'm thinking of things like berlinerweisse

Yum a really good British mild too.

Was also something I was picturing :)

Re: Can you hurt yourself eating chilli peppers?

#158

Post by jghn »

chrismcb wrote: post #126
jghn wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where are you finding BBQ which registers as "the hottest food"? I can't think of a single regional BBQ style which would qualify as needle moving at all for me.

I'm guessing you're never met "the man" direction Dixie's BBQ. I'm not a big fan of spicy BBQ but there is definitely hot BBQ.

But there is no regional BBQ style which is spicy.

I can find nearly any food item on the planet that somebody has decided to jack up to 11, that doesn't make that food item the most generally hot thing out there.

Re: Can you hurt yourself eating chilli peppers?

#159

Post by luca_ing »

calvinbhai wrote: post #80

I'm not sure why people go for the heat. I'm from India and there are many hot/spicy options available. But most chili peppers are used for their flavor or color (e.g. Kashmiri Red Chilli powder is very red, less spicy) and varying the levels of heat/spiciness by adding more of less of it, instead of using the spiciest variety (like the ghost peppers that have caught the fancy of the west). I wish the flavor componen…

> I'm not sure why people go for the heat.

> I wish the flavor component had some kind of a quantifiable unit instead of the scoville units that has fueled this craze of feeling the burn.

> Don't fall for this tongue numbing "hottest wings/sauce in the world". Enjoy the flavor :)

I agree, but you need a certain tolerance to heat before you can stomach enough chili to notice the flavour.

To westerners with low heat tolerance, "hot" is literally the only taste they detect.

I've always had high heat tolerance, so I'm able to debate with my wife whether green or red or dry chilies would be better for a particular dish - because to us (and to you) it really makes a difference in flavour.

To them, more or less heat is the flavour, so that is what they tweak.

Apart from the machismo factor of proving your superiority by eating a vegetable without crying ;-)

Re: Can you hurt yourself eating chilli peppers?

#160

Post by luca_ing »

jordigh wrote: post #50
huherto wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yes, yes. The burn is important. I was just trying to stress the importance of flavor. The best is when it is so hot but so good and the only thing you can do is keep eating. You know that it is really going to hurt when you stop.

I don't eat habaneros or ghost peppers for the flavour. I eat them for the burn. I guess the flavour is ok, but it's not the main attraction. Just like people don't really consume beer for the flavour, or non-alcoholic beer would be a lot more popular than it is, since it just tastes like beer without the bitterness of alcohol. https://xkcd.com/1534/

> Just like people don't really consume beer for the flavour,

Oh but I assure you they do.

In fact everybody I know drinks beer exclusively for the flavour. Why else would they?

Even my 93-year-old grandmother drinks it, but she can only drink half a bottle, after that it will start to affect her. She complains bitterly how she'd like to drink more, but can't anymore.

> or non-alcoholic beer would be a lot more popular than it is, since it just tastes like beer

I have never found a tasty alcohol-free beer. I'd be happy to find some. I love the taste of beer, but after a few I need to stop before it goes to my head.

The process that removes the alcohol somehow also removes the pleasant taste (maybe because the alcohol content partly determines the taste?)

> without the bitterness of alcohol.

The bitterness comes from hops, and possibly malt.

If it were the alcohol that was bitter, wine would be quite bitter, and Vodka would be unbearable.

I don't mean this as an attack on you at all, but you seem to have little experience in the matter.

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