Why do you like spicy food?

A discussion between some of the guys at work was on the topic of spicy food.

One of the guys really enjoys eating super hot eye watering levels of spice in his food while others expressed that they just like a hint. For me personally, I have a limit once it starts numbing my taste buds. I however really enjoy the variety of 'hot' recipes out there from all over. I recognize that different cuisine trends to have different views of levels of heat which might influence a person's tolerance. That leads me to my question...

Why do you like to eat spicy food? (If you even do?)

Is there something in particular that you like about it?

Bonus points if you recommend a dish or type of spicy condiment.

First of all, we should define what spicy even means. My own spice tolerance goes like this: if I'm eating a fresh habanero, holding the stem, I can eat the bottom half without problem, but when I get to the top half, I nibble the outside off and leave the placenta where the real heat is concentrated, or at least take it very slowly. Sriracha is like ketchup with a little zing. Lots of people think that's already super-insano hot and others think I'm wimpy because they enjoy eating Carolina Reapers. If I eat really hot stuff, aside from hurting my mouth, I get these horrible hiccups that hurt and make tears run from my eyes.

I like flavorful chiles, including the heat. Some things are just hot and I can leave that for others. But the moderate-heat C. chinense peppers are fruity and floral and amazing. (Anyone who can't take habaneros because of the heat should grow habanadas so they can taste the floral qualities without the capsaicin.) I also enjoy pushing my limit a little. And the endorphin/dopamine rush is fun too!

And like, I have this whole little world of foods I can eat that are closed to people like my mother in law who can't tolerate even a whiff of heat. And they're some of my favorites. I grow chiles and brew hot sauce and correspond with people in online special interest groups about the same. It's a little community, though I guess that's sort of an aside from liking "spicy food."

I feel bad for people who don't like chiles in the same way I felt bad for my mother who hated garlic. Like, what?!

My level of spiciness is taco salad and guacamole with Pace Picante sauce.  Period.

Anne Miller wrote:My level of spiciness is taco salad and guacamole with Pace Picante sauce.  Period.

Anne, a point of clarity? Do you experience that as spicy or do you just not like to experience the spicy sensation, so you stick with a picante sauce made with mostly sweet peppers?

Tim, having given up the use of salt many years ago, (health issues) I needed a major replacement. That started my search for the perfect spice and heat blend.  It's an ongoing search, but every blend I try has some heat in it.

Peace

I would bet I am in the 99th percentile of heat lovers in the US, but speculate I’d be closer to the average in India or Thailand. I think people have different tastes because it increases the diversity and of foods available to a given population, and reduces competitiveness for foods that could lead to social strife. I will let you enjoy your goat cheese, and fewer people will compete with me for the hot stuff.

The conclusions below have mixed correlation to me, and I will leave it at that, but here are some interesting articles on the topic:

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4316214/

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1526590019308703

https://time.com/3633813/spicy-food-testosterone/

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/life-style/health-fitness/diet/if-you-love-spicy-food-it-tells-this-about-your-sex-life/amp_etphotostory/67709822.cms

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0531556519305169

A few degrees of heat "freshen up" leftovers that are still safe to eat (if well heated) but well past their peak freshness. Chicken, chili, roasted veggies, etc. A generous splash of hot sauce adds oomph and makes them taste good -- no waste. Though I'm not permitted to kiss Dear Wife afterwards.

Christopher Weeks wrote:

Anne Miller wrote:My level of spiciness is taco salad and guacamole with Pace Picante sauce.  Period.

Anne, a point of clarity? Do you experience that as spicy or do you just not like to experience the spicy sensation, so you stick with a picante sauce made with mostly sweet peppers?

I am not a fan of spicy though I like those.  I have no idea what kind of peppers is in Pace Picante sauce.

It is delicious and good for you. There are many studies on the benefits. Spicy ingredients provide flavor without the extra calories.

I do think that I have higher tolerance for spicy foods which may be genetic. I did not grow up eating spicy foods, so it's not like I was desensitized at a young age.

My favorite spicy foods are coconut curry - extra spicy, homemade hot sauce, hot pepper vinegar, chili crisp, tons of Indian dishes, any Asian noodle dishes (pad thai, stir fries), homemade buffalo wings. My favorite hot peppers to grow (right now) are sugar rush peach stripey and tabasco. I love the superhots as well, but you can only use so many in a dish. I also like mustard, wasabi, horseradish and so on.

Green crab curry.
At a little beachside shack of a restaurant in Rayong, Thailand.
My girlfriend bragged the ol' gal running the place that I could eat very Thai hot. That woman pestled like 13-14 of those tiny, wicked, little Prik Kee No (rat sh*t) chilis in. Never seen them stateside, only the much longer 'bird chilis'.
Coconut cream, garlic, crab, chilis, palm sugar, homemade green curry base, stunningly hot. Worked it back with a nice Thai iced tea and some sticky rice. Even my tomboy Thai G.F., who prided herself on eating very, very hot, kinda shied away.
Those little Thai chilis are 'creepers'. Start hot, with a quick burn, then get progressively hotter. Once I got over that initial burn, and the sweat, I started to get a bit numb. Then I got  what must be what distance runners call the 'runner's high'. Every once in awhile I would get the same lifting weights.
A mild drug like endorphin euphoria, where the burn was gone, I felt great, and the true nature of the deliciousness of the food, just how well made it was, was all that was left.
Hot, subtle sweet, little sour, salty, 'umami', everything that makes really good Thai food, truly great.  Easily the best curry I have ever had.
We left, I went up to pay. That wicked old gal flashed me a couple of gold teeth, and a dark, happy, smile from her eyes. The gringo who truly eats Thai hot. I meant it when I tried to tell her how good it really was.
Had the same experience during mud school in Houston, little Thai joint after lifting. Asked for som tham, a simple salad, one of my absolute favorites. Thai hot. Shredded green papaya, lime, chilis, garlic, palm sugar, fish sauce, whatever the house adds for garnish. Same result, numb runner's high. Amazingly good.
For me it's the food palate. Mexican or Indian, and I like them both, seem often just hot for the sake of hot. Like an add on. But, I will admit, for the most part I've only really had the stateside version of both. Maybe the indigenous is better.
For Thai food, the flavor of the heat is as much a part of the identity as is the freshness of the ingredients. Nothing like it.

Tommy Bolin wrote:Mexican or Indian, and I like them both...

Oh, this quote reminded me of something that might be material to a discussion of spicy food. When my daughter was about three, she would try some Mexican food that seemed slightly spicy to me and she would say "oh hot" and reject it while panting. But when we gave her slightly spicy Indian, she would stop, stay "oh hot", pant a bit, and dig in to eat more. I'm not sure if there was something different about the nature of the spicy that I wasn't picking up on or if maybe she just liked the other flavors much more. But apparently, context matters.

i also did not grow up eating hot, but as soon as i was exposed to it loved it.
i have been that person growing the reapers and doing 'pepper shots' until i get those bad hiccups that tell me it's the end of the line... my husband had the same pepper-free upbringing but also has acquired the taste.

now i am older and i still eat a LOT of pepper but i'm all about the taste of the pepper. eating peppers just for the kick of the heat holds no attraction for me anymore.
there is the idea that eating peppers to make you sweat may cool you off in hot weather. i think it's more correlation than causality, and i like using peppers to cool off in summer AND to warm up in winter! I like them best when they're mixed with ginger and garlic. I think "hot" level Korean red pepper flakes are the best balance of heat and amazing floral and fruity flavor.

I think that spices can make an otherwise plain meal feel more filling and satisfying. It may have to do with the “phytochemicals” that are abundant in spices and lend flavor to plant foods. I don’t use a lot of spices though as I find that fresh food is typically good as it is, though I will add salt or miso to add nutrition and flavor. Much of my spice (or strong flavor) intake comes from gardening or foraging nibbles, and medicinal teas—my tongue might be numb from all of the plantain leaves and self heal by the time I’m back from picking chanterelles.

There are a number of hotter-tasting wild spices I know, one of which is bergamot. I like the flowers but the leaves taste more like medicine to me. They are comparably spicy to peppers but have a thyme-like flavor and a mint-like coolness to their taste as well.

Horseweed is perhaps my favorite. They are pungent, similar to a black pepper, but with a lovely, fragrant complexity.

I sometimes eat yogurt with spices such as salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cayenne. Capsicum, I tend to appreciate as a medicinal herb especially, because of their circulation and blood benefits. I also like the flavor though, and enjoy kimchi.

Honeysuckle leaf, or seed (but I haven’t tried the seed yet) can also be extremely spicy. Their flavor causes the breath to deepen and increase, and “removeth weariness” as Gerard writes. Some individuals are spicier than others; some are more bitter or fragrant. The spiciness is more gradual than capsicum, and it doesn’t have the same flavor, only the heat.

Mint is one I wish to eat more of. They are common in wetlands but I always think of them as a tea herb. I saw a mint salad in a cookbook though, which made me think that it would benefit to gather and eat more mint.

Yarrow is also one of my favorites. It is good to keep a jar of yarrow over the winter for cuts as well.

I like "medium spicy".  My husband likes spicy spicy.  His mom ate lots of spicy foods while breastfeeding him so he'd enjoy spice, a practice common in parts of the world where spice is common.  It worked on him.

Lots of good comments, and the articles Ben posted were great!

My $0.02,

There are plenty of ways to talk about 'spicy', but I think it all comes back to the balance of flavors.  If I add too much green cardamom to a dish it will be too spicy.  It would be unbalanced to the point of tasting bad.  Spicy-hot foods, (whether it be from hot peppers, horseradish, garlic, or even black pepper) I see as the same.  The balancing act is about gauging the palate of the folks I'm serving.

We use a LOT of garlic in my house.  Almost every dish starts with 'go peel some garlic...no, more than that'.  While my family will adore some of our staple dishes, my own mother will find them inedible because of the overpowering garlic taste - and heat.  They're unbalanced for her palate.  We tone them down when she's there and try to augment the flavors in some other way...since we all like strong flavors.

End of the day with any 'spicy flavor', if you like the other flavors around it (like garlic in my house) you'll eat it regularly and acclimate to the 'spicy-ness' of it.  If it is the heat itself someone is looking for then that's a different story and its own slippery slope. :D

I would say I am a moderate spice person. I go for flavour rather than burn. Loads of roasted garlic, fairly easy on the chilli.

If it burns that sensitive part of the anatomy as it exits the body, that is definitely waaaaaaay too spicy!

So...the slippery slope of heat...

I've always eaten various peppers, but never really pushed myself.  When traveling for work and feeling a bit sick, I'd look for Pho.  It always seemed to do the trick....bone broths do that.  When especially stuffy, I threw in a few too many jalapeno slices and discovered capsicum's mucus thinning powers as it cleared out my whole head.  While soundly unpleasant at the time, I could breathe clearly the rest of the day.  A total win in my mind.

This started a pattern, I traveled for work a lot back then.  As I adjusted to the heat I started to notice different flavors in the spicy foods.  I mean jalapenos are rather grassy, but I could taste the other flavors in other peppers as well.  I started exploring peppers, less for the heat than for other flavors.  I mean the smokey, fruity flavors of a home grown habanero is amazing, but you have to be able to get past the heat to taste that.

Far enough down that road, I discovered the whole endorphin rush that comes with eating something that's 'too hot'.  It's a roller coaster, but just about the best mood improver I know.  After running into that at lunch, I'd be 'feeling great' for the rest of the day - both physically and mentally.

My rule is that it has to taste good first.  There are plenty of dishes that are 'hot for the sake of hot' and there is no fun in that.

BTW, a peach-habanero pie is still my absolute favorite pie.  The sugar from the peaches tone down the heat and the smokey/fruity flavors of the habanero compliment fresh cooked peaches brilliantly.  It needs home grown habaneros though, the store bought ones are usually bland and just heat.  You can de-seed and de-vein the habaneros to reduce the heat further, but I think it looses some flavor profile in the process.

I make a gallon of cayenne tincture at a time if that tells you anything about our capsaicin consumption.

I use cayenne powder on almost all the foods we eat and in bone broth and smoothies.

Capsaicin has so many physiological benefits says the responsible side of me.

The irresponsible side of me will go get a dropper full of the tincture because I just like it and it gets me fired up and I do not have a good explanation on why.

Since I prefer cayenne, I must be a medium hot kinda person.

I like just a little bit of heat when it's cayenne. I can take a lot more when it's ginger or horse radish onion upsets my stomach if I'm not careful, and radishes are fine. Black pepper I'm pretty good with. Green chilli's: pretty hot because I got used to them in the past.

To like: the taste of course, plus they are great for the health, at least on the mild end of the spectrum, i could build my tolerance and benefit more. The sinuses like it as well. (Last winter, I consumed a lot of ginger with mullen.)

Ra Kenworth wrote:To like: the taste of course, plus they are great for the health, at least on the mild end of the spectrum, i could build my tolerance and benefit more. The sinuses like it as well. (Last winter, I consumed a lot of ginger with mullen.)

Ooh, I'll need to try a ginger and mullen tincture, that's a great idea!  Thank you!

Dave: it was tea. I had something like COVID or walking pneumonia -- I've never had a cough linger for so long before. It was the first time I've used mullen, not expecting it to taste slightly sweet and very tasty! I've never learned to make tinctures. Mullen is plentiful enough in my yard.

Ra Kenworth wrote:Dave: it was tea. I had something like COVID or walking pneumonia -- I've never had a cough linger for so long before. It was the first time I've used mullen, not expecting it to taste slightly sweet and very tasty! I've never learned to make tinctures. Mullen is plentiful enough in my yard.

Oh tinctures are super easy.  Take the herb you want to tincture, fill a jar about half full if it is leaf/flower, or a quarter full if it is berries, wood, or roots.  Then top it up with a neutral spirit like vodka.  close it up, label it, and give it a shake every day for about two months.  It's ready to use.  

Leave the material in there, it'll just get stronger with time.  Also those volumes are a rough starting place, if it's too strong, thin it out, too weak you add more.  I label the jar with the herbs in, the date I started it, and the weights of the herbs...so I could make it the same again next time.

A fresh ginger, mullen tea would be lovely.  I'll try it this afternoon.

Josh Hoffman wrote:I make a gallon of cayenne tincture at a time if that tells you anything about our capsaicin consumption.

Josh, since we're talking tinctures I would love to hear about yours!! It sounds like something I could use in my kitchen.

+1 on @Dave Lucey garlic. Li'B grows 5-7000/year, and it is outstanding.
For those with 'sensitive' anatomies, even elderly Thai people outlive their tolerance to very hot food.
I firmly believe that like a lot of other digestive issues the problem lies in a decrease in enzymes produced as we age. If you love the food, but don't handle it well anymore, then consider this.
My routine became one of those 'Yakult' yogurt drinks for the probiotics and a couple of my complete digestive enzyme tabs prior to supper. If you like, some sort of calcium carbonate 'Tums' type tabs will settle the acid burn a bit.
Don't forget the ice cream. Even Cheech and Chong knew that.

Half of a wall in our kitchen contains row after row of spices over the counter up to the ceiling. Many containers are a single spice and some are combinations for specific foods/dishes. The wife KNOWS spices and what compliments what food. That doesn't mean she heavily loads her cooking with them - she compliments the food or sometimes not at all. Some spices or combinations can change a simple food from one area or region's taste to a completely different one. That to me is spicy.

One the other side of the kitchen is the 'hot' stuff and obviously those contain some spices mostly by brand variances. But I don't consider them spicy. Those are hot.

Hat's off to folks who know how to use spices and how to use the hot stuff.

BTW, I have a bottle off 1 Million Scofield Pepper Extract. Is that spicy to you? (No, it is dangerous. I mix 2 tbsp with 16 oz of water in a spray bottle to use under the hoods of eqmt the keep the ground squirrels and mice from eating stuff.)

Tereza Okava wrote:

Josh Hoffman wrote:I make a gallon of cayenne tincture at a time if that tells you anything about our capsaicin consumption.

Josh, since we're talking tinctures I would love to hear about yours!! It sounds like something I could use in my kitchen.

It could just be a personal preference of mine.

I prefer the tincture because we grow our own peppers. I am not a big fan of drying completely then powdering to use with food. I also do not like to make tincture from powders because of the mess of pressing the tincture out of the powder.

I stuff 4 quart jars with partially dried peppers and fill them with whatever the cheapest vodka is. Cayenne is the pepper of choice but I have used others. I did use boughten cayenne powder once to compare the heat level and I feel I get similar results with the homegrown partially dry peppers.

A bottle with dropper and a squirt bottle work well. Dropper for medicinal dosing and squirt bottle for food. I like it in bone broth, smoothies, and squirted on top of about any dish. A squirt on top of a bed of rice and add the other toppings is nice. It does very well in marinade. It gets used as a hot sauce more or less.

I have tinctured a lot of different things but I do not notice the alcohol. Some people say they do and I doubt this would be a good choice for them. It always tasted like herbs to me.

Josh Hoffman wrote:I prefer the tincture because we grow our own peppers. I am not a big fan of drying completely then powdering to use with food. I also do not like to make tincture from powders because of the mess of pressing the tincture out of the powder.

I'm completely behind not wanting to dry and pulverize peppers for cooking, but I think there is a place for dried peppers.  Anchos and Poblanos have different flavors, and anchos are just dried poblanos.  I will re-hydrate them before using (10 minutes in a bit of very hot water), but the altered flavors persist.  You can also roast either of them (dry or fresh) and end up with very different results.

Chile Colorado is a personal favorite dish, and it just doesn't taste right without colorados (dried anaheim chilis).

I like spicy hot. I tend to prefer red chilli flavors better than green chilli flavors. In India, often a friend found the curry (made with dried red chilli) verging on too hot whereas I loved it, but they were nibbling on a little Indian green chilli on the side through the meal, that was too hot for me.

The capsaicin can irritate the urinary tract, so if you are recovering from, say, prostate problems or a UTI, you may find that eating spicy hot foods makes your problem worse.

Im of eastern European decent. Chocolate milk is too spicy.

I can sense that my mind has had a lot of thoughts about this topic but which I haven't spent enough time articulating yet. But I know the general theme of these thoughts, and if I were to put them under a heading it would read like this:

"The link between spicy (piquant) food and enlightenment."

In the TV show "The Simpsons" there is one episode with an iconic scene in which Homer eats a very spicy pepper and it produces a kind of acid trip/vision quest experience.

The scene is meant to be comedic and ridiculous of course, but I think they were actually onto something. Not because eating spicy food will literally make you hallucinate or even think deep thoughts, but there is something about eating it...the pain, the sense of accomplishment, the perseverance, the extreme dualities of the experience (sustenance vs. pure enjoyment, pleasure vs. discomfort, flavor vs. burn, etc.)...that seems symbolically potent to me in a meaningful way.

Also the fact that no other mammal seeks out spicy food, the spiciness is the organism's own adaptation to discourage being eaten, yet basically all the spicy peppers that we know of exist because of human cultivation. They are an artifact of our own species!

I plan to think and write more about this sometime in the future.

For now I'll just say I have a freakish level of tolerance to hot food compared to most people around me, but then again I live in the American midwest where a few shakes of ground black pepper is about as much as anyone can take.

Lately I have discovered a hot sauce that the store keeps in the same fridge in the produce section where they keep the expensive pre-packaged salad kits (so, not where the other hot sauces are typically kept); it's mostly just habanero pulp with a few other ingredients, and I gather it is meant to be kept refrigerated at home as well. It is delicious and I put it on all kinds of things. Sometimes I just pour a little puddle of it on my hand and lick it straight up.

Nette's Fine Mexican Food in the south of Omaha just before you get to Bellevue had/has the BEST broth chili (nope, no beans) that I have ever eaten. It is HOT. I always ordered at least a cup if not a bowl and used it instead of the (homemade) table hot sauce. As a family we ate there about once a week. We never placed an order because when they saw us come through the door they knew what to make up, including my margarita.

Hot food is definitely a preference and I think that as long as your constitution can handle it, it has health benefits. Like parasite removal (wink). And a cardo moment whole seated.

An additional reason for loving spicy food (meaning flavourfully hot) is health related: I can add a sprinkle of ground cayenne pepper on things before cooking/reheating and they will taste great without adding salt. The sauces and dips out there also taste great, but they have enough sodium to kill an elephant.

Douglas Alpenstock wrote:spicy food (meaning flavourfully hot)

"hot" and "spicy" are frustrating words, aren't they? A baked potato fresh from the oven is "hot", because it's about 400˚F. A sweet potato pie is "spicy", because its flavor is dominated by spices--cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves, in that instance.

I wish "piquant" was better known and in wider use. A habanero pepper is piquant. (At least "piquant" has a fairly well-known Spanish cognate, "picante"!)

At home we say "picante" and "caliente" to distinguish between things loaded with capsaicin and charged with thermal energy. I don't guess we really use a word to describe loaded with other spices -- "strong" maybe? I think "savory" usually means extra umami.

Ned Harr wrote:

Douglas Alpenstock wrote:spicy food (meaning flavourfully hot)

"hot" and "spicy" are frustrating words, aren't they?  ... A habanero pepper is piquant. (At least "piquant" has a fairly well-known Spanish cognate, "picante"!)

Yes, there has to be a better way to describe 'flavour heat" more clearly. I like "picante" -- it's precise and fun to say.

How about conjugations based on Scoville? Scovillian, Scovilized, Scovy?

Douglas Alpenstock wrote:How about conjugations based on Scoville? Scovillian, Scovilized, Scovy?

Scovillized! I'm stealing that!

Scovillainous would work well too

Ned Harr wrote:Scovillainous would work well too

That sounds like it describes the ones with bumps and stingers.



(from https://towns-endchiliandspice.com/collections/library/products/apocalypse-chocolate-pepper-seeds)

The food that is served in our household is extremely diverse, Chinese, Indian, Thai, Singaporean, Maltese, Italian, French, traditional British, antipodean, reflecting our respective upbringings.

Our spice drawer is equally diverse.

To me, spicy does not equate to heat, we often omit chili or tone it right down otherwise it can overwhelm all the flavours.

I often buy whole spices and toast and grind them as needed to avoid them going stale.

We like cooking with herbs and spices as it adds interest to our meals and makes eating them more enjoyable.

We also appreciate simple dishes with just salt and pepper and/or fresh herbs to allow the flavours of the produce shine so not every meal is highly spiced.

Dave Lucey, could I ask you to please share the recipe for peach habanero pie? It sounds amazing.

Dave Lucey wrote:So...the slippery slope of heat...

I've always eaten various peppers, but never really pushed myself.  When traveling for work and feeling a bit sick, I'd look for Pho.  It always seemed to do the trick....bone broths do that.  When especially stuffy, I threw in a few too many jalapeno slices and discovered capsicum's mucus thinning powers as it cleared out my whole head.  While soundly unpleasant at the time, I could breathe clearly the rest of the day.  A total win in my mind.

This started a pattern, I traveled for work a lot back then.  As I adjusted to the heat I started to notice different flavors in the spicy foods.  I mean jalapenos are rather grassy, but I could taste the other flavors in other peppers as well.  I started exploring peppers, less for the heat than for other flavors.  I mean the smokey, fruity flavors of a home grown habanero is amazing, but you have to be able to get past the heat to taste that.

Far enough down that road, I discovered the whole endorphin rush that comes with eating something that's 'too hot'.  It's a roller coaster, but just about the best mood improver I know.  After running into that at lunch, I'd be 'feeling great' for the rest of the day - both physically and mentally.

My rule is that it has to taste good first.  There are plenty of dishes that are 'hot for the sake of hot' and there is no fun in that.

BTW, a peach-habanero pie is still my absolute favorite pie.  The sugar from the peaches tone down the heat and the smokey/fruity flavors of the habanero compliment fresh cooked peaches brilliantly.  It needs home grown habaneros though, the store bought ones are usually bland and just heat.  You can de-seed and de-vein the habaneros to reduce the heat further, but I think it looses some flavor profile in the process.