I had a South Indian vegetarian meal that was the absolute tastiest thing I have ever eaten, and somehow I got the version that wasn’t red hot with spices (which they can be) and the flavours without it were amazing.
I’d have it more often but the “let’s just put 10 chilis in here” risk factor is too high.
Although this thread has reminded me of the time I helped peel garlic for a “100 garlic curry” and it was so tasty we ate all of it, and all of us had garlic coming out of our pores in the office the next day. And maybe the day after that.
Yeah it was amazingly tasty but I have a photo somewhere of both me and my brother in law looking extremely red in the face (the excessive amounts of red wine they gave us during the course didn’t help…) from the spice.
I can pin down the moment when I realised I had grown up. It was the evening of 18 June 2002, when I found myself thinking “well, I have a job interview tomorrow, maybe I shouldn’t eat the last of the seven-garlic pizza for supper tonight”.
I have developed some kind of garlic intolerance–my throat gets scratchy and it feels like I should take antihistamines…especially raw garlic. I used to love it but now I only use the bare minimum for every recipe.
As for German dishes with spice…
Some of you might have heard of or tried “Currywurst” which is a classic streetfood.
In any case the local currywurst shop has a list of heat levels on their menu and once upon a time I would go as high 911.
Anyhow usually Currywurst is served with either some bread or french fries. Well the fries at that shop were excellent but also quite salty, fatty and extremely hot (as in temperature)… combine that with a super spicy curry ketchup and it’s a recipe for pain. I eventually preferrred the 911 with bread and these days I just eat “Scharf” it’s not like I was able to taste much of the 911. (Ausserirdisch = “not from this world” / “alien”)
But I have tried Suicide-Level hot sauces ordered from chili klaus (who also sells some of the Hot Ones sauces) and they were really tasty. So tasty in fact that I may have had … indigestion.
We recently tried some bought crispy chili oil and the two of us finished a small glass with about 3 meals. It was super hot. Painful even but soooo good I couldn’t stop myself from eating more.
But the next type we tried had more taste at less hotness and I think we’ll stick with that one in the future.
I like black pepper, even quite a lot of it, and chili, in moderation. I was amused when Norman Spinrad, who had been talking about cooking Tex-Mex chili, started complaining that the chili in a Glasgow hotel for an SF convention was “really hot” - it was lively, but no more than that.
I use mustard in small quantities in beef dishes, as a flavour enhancer, rather than for heat. I’ve eaten West Indian dishes with black bean sauce and liked them.
But there’s something in Indian curries that just makes them painful. I haven’t really tried to find out what, because all the Indian food I’ve tasted has been painfully hot or extremely bland, and I don’t feel motivated to work on the problem.
I might be a Supertaster. If so, it is not advantageous. Coriander tastes like soap to me.
I feel strongly that chilli has no place in Indian-style curries. I’d rather taste the spices! (And vindaloo is a British invention. Or rather, the one everyone’s heard of is. I’d like to try the earlier Goan version…)
I really like spicy food and I like to add hot sauce when I remember to. One of the things I’ve done is go to an Indian restaurant and ladder my way up to their hottest curry and it’s quite a good way to ensure you don’t hit a disaster instantly.
I really enjoy the sensation of a really cayenne hot food this weird spacey feeling, especially with a beer or two.
I have found myself feeling kind of too achy afterwards though so maybe I need to row it back a bit.
When I was working in Shoreditch I’d go the local Chinese takeaway once a week, and usually order the salt and pepper chilli chicken. Once they got to know me, each week they’d ramp up the chilli a bit more. Sadly the company went bust before I found out how it would end.
I like plenty of chilli spice. My wife was born and raised in the Caribbean and my tolerance really escalated when one of her aunts brought 2 bottles of homemade pepper sauce. There was much mirth when I could eat it and was enjoying it and asking for more.
The thing about these huge bottles of sauce was they got hotter over time. A year later the look on the face of @lalunaverde when he tried it was unforgettable. I still feel bad despite how strong my warnings were.
A Nigerian friend came round having giving it the biggun about how much he loves ‘pepper’ (chillies). Being the only white person at his daughter’s christening there was an assumption I wouldn’t cope with spice and the grave warning I got about the extra hot nando’s chicken with a speech about chilli in his culture and how it’s part of his being. This was fine but did make it more amusing when I was quaffing down lunch augmented by the pepper sauce no bother while he had some and broke out sweating, looking all uncomfortable and having to stop eating and go and lie down to recover.
I really like sharp sour tastes so I really like a good cayenne and vinegar sauce in the tabasco style and other preserved vinegar ones. I brought back from Trinidad one that was made with aged and pickled scotch bonnets which was my favourite shop bought I’ve tried. The bulk game from papaya so it was a really nicely rounded taste. In the UK enconna and Frank’s are up there for available day to day sauces and I’m down for sriracha sauce at times but I often find it’s made with a little too much sugar. I also find sriracha not a good combo with potato so not a chip/wedge dipper.
Recently I was eating at a Mauritian place and the guy was selling his homemade sauce so I purchased some while asking him what was in it. Birds eye chillies, garlic, lemon juice, salt and a bit of oil. Really impressively tasty so I think I’m going to have to progress to making my own sauces soon given how straight forward that is for results.
I tried my hand at making Mexican inspired red sauce recently inspired by using youtube to get a more authentic Mexican meal within the limitations of trying it from the UK. Rehydrated dried chilies with garlic and slat and that was also yumbles. I would love to go on a holiday to Mexico for eating reasons. Sadly my wife is like @RogerBW ‘s and can’t eat spicy foods so in addition to the not being able to afford holiday’s now it will probably be an unrealised pipe dream. So I will instead suffice with making red sauce with hotter chillies.
One thing I find odd about heat in food is how sauces and real chillies sort of work separately. Tolerance to hot sauce I don’t think helps as well as I’d have thought for tolerance to food cooked with chilies. Also as already noted raw chilies often another level again.
None chilly heats are good by me too. I really like many a mustard but not fussed on English mustard. Don’t find it very flavoursome.
I can’t really explain my taste for spicy foods, because it doesn’t make sense. I find sriracha to be like fire on my tongue however little I have of it. Meanwhile, I find jalapenos very pleasant, cayenne provides a nice heat (if used modestly), and tabasco sauce has very little heat at all.
Science says I’m wrong. I don’t know what to tell you.
Sriracha is quite salty. Salty enhances tastes… could be it? Also there are variants of Sriracha with more or less heat… and Jalapenos can indeed be quite mild depending on the type.
Tabasco really has no heat at all.
I think my tongue is just broken. I’ve also had scotch bonnet peppers several times and found them fine. Whereas I find habanero peppers intolerable except in tiny amounts.
The only other explanation I have is that I’m being sold counterfeit peppers, which… that’s not a thing… is it?
no idea. you should start by testing all the hot sauces you can find 
habanero are far more common though I would say. But in theory I would say scotch bonnet should have more heat.
Some googling has delivered BBC investigative journalism about counterfeit spices, so I will now mostly be eating bread and water.
Ah… you’re not familiar with the ways they adulterate flour, I take it?
Ah, psychologically, if all food is tampered with, then I may as well eat any tampered food. Back I go to eating smoked paprika cut with brick dust.
This is a family forum!!
