this post was submitted on 05 Nov 2023
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Hot sauce people do kind of suck though.
People that make hot sauce eating into a competitive spectacle are the problem.
I grew up eating hot foods. I found that if you’re ever discovered eating unusually hot foods by a lot of people you end up becoming “that person who eats spicy stuff” and you get pushed to eat spicier and spicier things as people try to break you. It’s miserable.
It’s not about where your tolerance is at, but your comfort level. My tolerance is high but I’m not going all the way up to go to it, I’ll stay down in my comfort level. My comfort level is higher than many peoples’ tolerance, but I don’t get showy about it. There is a group at work of people who one up eachother with spicy foods. Most of what they have looks pretty weak. I eat homemade tteokbokki that probably crushes most of their sauces, but I’ll never let them know. I don’t want them bringing me synthetic, flavorless pain sauces.
There’s no point in eating something that’s painful to you.
I hope I don't get too annoying about it, but the times I am vocal about spicy food is basically every time I go out to eat at a "spicy" restaurant (Thai, Tex-Mex, etc.). I absolutely despise choosing the spiciest thing on the menu ("4/4 habaneros! get the kiss of death with this extra-spicy sauce!") and then it turns out the plate has maybe 2 mL of regular tabasco and/or a couple Jalapeños, well below my comfort level or my "yummy, spice!" level.
Every once in a blue moon though you'll find a place that has actually spicy food (either by mistake or recent immigrants who don't quite understand yet that many Belgians' tolerance stops at garlic and pepper, which is not an exaggeration), and it's the best thing ever. But everyone I'm going out with usually complains that it's too spicy... Can't win. I just wish restaurants would actually advertise rough Scoville units or something, rather than useless arbitrary scales.
That can be a problem. There have actually been a few Thai restaurants in my life which will simply not serve "authentic spicy" to some people. I actually brought a Korean friend to one once, and we each ordered "authentic spicy" and then swapped plates when they were brought to the table. The waitress looked like she was going to have a heart attack. The dish my friend had ordered was was spicier.
This is why I always ask if "4/4 spicy" means "4/4 white-people spicy" or "4/4 [country of origin spicy", because I love a white-people-spicy curry, but I don't want to actually burst into flames please.
This is also a problem in Japan, though it's gotten a bit better in the last couple years. You could order the "extremely hot" version of something and it would be quite literally barely have even a noticeable level of spice. More recently though I've seen actual bags of habaneros for sale at farm stands, something that would've been completely unthinkable even just 5 years ago, when tabasco was pretty much the hottest thing you'd (regularly) see in the entire country (that or ichimi/shichimi, which are powdered spices comparable to a tabasco heat).
However, we still had (and still mostly have) the same problem of the very occasional Indian restaurant or ramen shop actually meaning it when they said extremely hot. But since it only happened like 2% of the time you just had to assume menus were lying until the rare instances when the heat blew your face off.
It's the age old problem of appealing to your audience. A restaurant gotta carve a niche, or adapt. My favourite thai in Annecy ended up taking away a lot of the Thai coriander and bean shoots because the average person in town didn't aporeciate the flavours.
And if you don't speak the language they probably won't serve you spice anyway, because they know the average idiot doesn't know how strong the real stuff gets. Side-note : watching my Chinese wife argue with a Vietnamese chef to serve her more spice was hilarious. He definitely used the European spice scale. She never wants to eat there again, even though it's one of the too few Asians in town.
On the other hand, if you get lucky, you'll find something like "Deux Fois Plus de Piment" in Paris where last time I went they had a warning literally telling you that string spicy food can give you diarrhea if you're not used to it, and your sinuses instantly unblock as you step inside. I knew I had to take my chinese wife there once I found the place, even though the place tested both our limits :,D
If you find a place like that, praise them, let them know, and defend them at all cost, is all I'm saying.
This was my question, my tongue can take any inferno you throw at it, my anus doesn't even like the fire packets from taco hell. Is there a way to condition your butt to withstand the highest Scoville ratings?
We have a "hot sauce guy" in our group and every time he comes out with us he has to make a spectacle of ordering whatever the hottest wings are and trying to get other people to do it too. He's autistic so I just ignore it but it's super annoying. Like... I just want to eat stuff I can actually taste bro. I'm not trying to set a new record here.
Some of the super hot sauces are like eating a spicy tyre fire - very unpleasant flavour, but sold on the "burn". I don't need to prove anything anymore, I'll stick with my habenero sauce and let the youngins do the "challenges".