How spicy do you eat?

[PandaBear]

The reason I asked is that many food I ate oversea vs the Americanized version here is the spiciness. They were burn your lip spicy oversea but not here.

So, how spicy can you guys tolerate? and would you rather eat something spicy but excellent? or mild but ok?

 

[XS650]

Spicy but excellent. I don't care for food that is painfully spicy, but don't like bland food either.

Americans wouldn't be so fat if they ate a more balanced diet that actually had some flavor in their food so that it was something they ate slowly and savored instead of scarfing down until they felt full.

I'm comfortable with average level of fire in Thai food as eaten by Thais in Thailand and Mexican food in states where they add some fire like Jalisco. Jaliscan food in Mexico can be excellent. In good restaurants it tends to be Mexicanised of Euro quisine.

The best way to get non-gringoized food in a foreign country is to explan to them that you are there to enjoy their countries food at it's best and say "Please prepare the food for me exactly like you would prepare it for one of your countrymen."

If language is a barrier, the message can be simplified to short word and grunts.

 

[sprintman]

XS650 if there aint no chilli I dont eat it. Only some Thai restaurants here tend to tone it down a touch and I ask them to make it the proper way. Aussies travel a lot. 80% have passports and use them regularly I read recently whereas 20% of Americans have pasports. A third of my co-workers will be o'seas this coming Xmas in all manner of places. So we tend to eat many varied things there and expect them here on return.

 

[Pablo]

I grow my own chili peppers.

I like my food appropriate.

Our cafe at my workplace is just OK - but the Hispanic couple who run it have a HUGE selection of bottled hot sauces. Makes the food pretty good.

I would say Americans have come a ways in their level of "heat" tolerance, so there is hope.

Also remember there is spiciness and there is chili heat. I keep them separate.

 

[Calvin]

Somewhere around 1990 or so I had to go into Berekley on business.Berekely has lots of ethnic restraunts.So my friend Sean and I decided it was time for lunch... He knew Berekley well... I rarely ever go there , so he picked the restraunt.He picked some Thai food place.I had never has Thai food at that time.

LSS the menu is in Thai.... I had no clue so Sean orders.I ended up with a plate of rice with some brown lumpy stuff on it.I had no clue what it was.... I asked Sean ,whats is this ? Chicken he replied..Ya right I thought.....

I took a bite.... DELICOUS !.... My gawd this is good ( No clue what it really was ). I get through maybe 3 bites and it starts to hit me. My nose starts running , my eyes start watering ,A try a couple more bites.... now I literrly cannot talk now.... It felt like someone had me in a choke hold.... It's hard to breathe.... but it's delicous......

About this time Sean grabs a small bottle that was sitting on the table.... it contained some clear liquid with a purple tint to it inside this bottle..... He says it's hot sauce.... In international sign language I said no thanks.... as I still couldnt talk at that point.....

The food was incredibably good.... but it was so painfull to eat that I couldnt really enjoy it.When it gets like that I think it crosses some kind of line of enjoyment. The food was so tasty that it just didnt need the neucular heat.

I cook alot and I use alot of various spices but I try to get a good flavor and enough heat that you know it's there but not enough to make it so painfull you just cant eat it.

 

[Pablo]

Calvin - that's pretty much how I discovered Thai food in OC in about 1984. I made the "mistake" of asking for the real thing. Good gawd it was good!

Your post had me howling by the way! You took:

quote:

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neucular heat

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to a whole new level!

 

[HEV]

Can't be too hot for me. Like Pabs, I grow my own chilies too. It's funny to me how one serrano pepper can be very spicy, yet another from the same plant will taste like a bell pepper??? Oddly enough, my Vietnamese wife doesn't like very spicy food, yet culturally, there traditional food is about as spicy as Thai food.

 

[moribundman]

Some food should be spicy, some not. I like a variety in my diet. I can eat a tablespoon of horseradish or a few hot jalapenos without ill effect, but I don't want to -- unless challenged.

 

[Calvin]

Heat is a strange thing.... I met my better half in the Philippines.Lynn can eat just about anything.She will take a Habanero and take a bite and eat it without much undo distress... she breaks into a sweat tho.Yet this same woman will tell me that Pace Thick and Chunky Salsa ( hot lable ) is too hot for her.To me there is no comparison between the Salsa's heat and a Raw Habanero....No comparision at all....but to Lynn there is.

 

[Pablo]

Don't have ton of time to post stories, but I have stayed in Sichuan province as well.

Don't eat the ma la!

But many, many excellent foods from smoked rabbit to cold chilie oil chicken. Wow...takes me back!

 

[XS650]

quote:

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Originally posted by Pablo:
Calvin - that's pretty much how I discovered Thai food in OC in about 1984. I made the "mistake" of asking for the real thing. Good gawd it was good!

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I agree 100% with your comment on spicyness vs hot. With Mexican food there is a fair corrolation between spiciness and hot. Indian and Thai food, there is much less of a corrolation.

It also depends on who's eating it. What's painfully hot to one person is just right to another person. It's matter of what your are used to and genetics.

By far the hottest Thai food I have had was in the US. And if you ask for hot in a US Thai restaurant, you never know if you are going to get something barely above bland or something that will peel the paint off the walls.

I took a tour of Thailand last February. I ate at the table with the tour guides and bus drivers few time to experiance the real thing. It was definitley on the interesting side, but not painful to someone used to the more interesting food available in the Western US.

Sichuan food in Sichan province is also a bit on the spicy/hot side. I took a tour there in 1996. Our group was from the West Coat, Texas and NY. Out night in Chong Qing (Chung King) The Texans and West Coaster got our guide to get us served authentic Sichan food, while the New Yorkers got the watered down Western version and still whined about how spicy it was. The food was outstanding, I don't remember what it was, but it was real pleasure.

 

[kreigle]

quote:

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Originally posted by XS650:
By far the hottest Thai food I have had was in the US. And if you ask for hot in a US Thai restaurant, you never know if you are going to get something barely above bland or something that will peel the paint off the walls.

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There is a Thai restaurant in Mechanicsburg, PA that we've been to a few times. When we first started going there, they would ask 'How hot', and would get it really hot, as I like it - once got something so hot that I could only eat a few bites at a time, but it was good! Last time were were there, it seemed they changed management as the table settings had changed, and they no longer asked how hot we wanted the dishes, although the menus still looked the same. The food came with virtually no 'heat' at all, and just wasn't quite the experience we were expecting. Don't know if we will go back.

quote:

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Originally posted by XS650:
Sichuan food in Sichan province is also a bit on the spicy/hot side. I took a tour there in 1996. Our group was from the West Coat, Texas and NY. Out night in Chong Qing (Chung King) The Texans and West Coaster got our guide to get us served authentic Sichan food, while the New Yorkers got the watered down Western version and still whined about how spicy it was. The food was outstanding, I don't remember what it was, but it was real pleasure.

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I would really love to try some REAL Chinese or asian cooking. Whenever we go to an oriental restaraunt, I always look for the hot/spicy dishes in the menu. Sichuan and Hunan dishes top my list, but we really have a hard time getting anything other than americanized mild/medium with no chilis. Can't even get them to cook the peppers in the General Tso's instead of just tossing them in the sauce at serving time

 

[Pablo]

Good posts fellows.

I forgot to mention my cayenne peppers from my old garden are fraggin' nuc-u-lar this year. I bit one last night, criminy - sheetz - my liver nearly burst and I think the varnish on the hardwood floor peeled off.

Serranos are good and hot.

Jalapenos I eat like candy (some years they are hot, though)

 

[sprintman]

Much prefer Scichuan to Cantonese. Theres a pretty new one just up the road from work. More my kind of flavour.

 

[vwoom]

quote:

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Originally posted by Calvin:
Heat is a strange thing.... I met my better half in the Philippines.Lynn can eat just about anything.She will take a Habanero and take a bite and eat it without much undo distress... she breaks into a sweat tho.Yet this same woman will tell me that Pace Thick and Chunky Salsa ( hot lable ) is too hot for her.To me there is no comparison between the Salsa's heat and a Raw Habanero....No comparision at all....but to Lynn there is.

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Is she from the Bicol Province? That area is known for it's spicy & hot Filipino cuisine often cooked with coconut milk..akin to Thai food. Ask her about "Bicol Express"...

My mom who actually hails from that southern part of the country can eat those small red or green pointy peppers called "sili"(considered one of the hottest peppers in the world)indigenous to the area straight...also without undue distress.

Btw, anyone into Siracha or those Thai sweet chili sauces..Mmmmm, good with spring rolls, fish cakes..esp with chicken. In this part of the Western San Gabriel Valley(Los Angeles Co.), you have a vast selection of Asian restaurants to choose from.

 

[Calvin]

Vwoom,

No Lynn is from Cagayan De Oro in Northern Mindanao.... The large southern island. When she gets back from work I'll ask her about the Sili Peppers.... I'm sure she will have some sort of story about them .... They sound dangerous tho

 

[vwoom]

quote:

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Originally posted by Calvin:
..They sound dangerous tho

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Calvin, these peppers are a lot smaller compared to your average sized Jalapeno..but terribly dang hotter!

p.s. Did your wife teach you some Bisaya dialect words..

 

[Calvin]

Oh... jeeze... Lynn just explained them to me..... Sorry... I'm a lightweight in spiciness department....I'll leave those Silis to you experts !

Lynn said to her the silis are worse than Habanaros... She said the little green ones arent too awfully bad but when they turn red they are blazeing hot....

She says that what she did was to crush one Sili and mix it with a dipping sauce for use with Kinilaw.

She said that there are actually Sili eating contests where you see who eats the most of a platefull of silis in one minute.

... I dont think I have what it takes to enter one of those !

Actually her native language is Vasian so she thinks in that but also speak Tagalog and English. I cant honestly say that I have any clue whats she says when she calls home.

 

[andyd]

grits nuked for 2:15, top with 2 eggs, nuke for 1:15. Add 4 blops of siracha sauce. Breakfast of champions

 

[sprintman]

I keep a bottle of Sriracha Chilli Sauce (Sauce Pimentee Sriracha) in my work fridge. It's a good one from Thailand with only chilli, vinegar, sugar, salt and garlic. I use it on everthing.