My wife has houseguests this weekend. I am of course detailed to cook for them. I just made dinner (bacon-wrapped jalapeño shrimp, with bruschetta and honey/balsamic Brussel sprouts as sides). To decide how much jalapeño to use, I yelled downstairs:
"Dear, verify your friends' comfort level with spice?"
"I like spicy!" one of them yelled back.
"I like spicy!" the other one yelled back.
"OK, here it comes," I said and walked away.
Downstairs, I could hear my wife panicking. "No! No! You don't know what you asked for! Mildly spicy! Mildly!"
7 comments:
I like spicy, but my wife doesn't anymore. It causes her to choke up and cough quite a while trying to catch her breath.
A while back, I mistakenly grabbed some Habanero peepers from the produce section of the local grocer. They were mixed in with the small sweet peppers. I sauted the peppers while I was cooking a piece of Red Snapper. The capsaicin from the peppers got in the smoke/steam from my cooking and wafted into the living room from the kitchen. Needless to say, the wife started coughing and gagging and took several minutes to catch her breath after I opened the windows and turned the ceiling fan on high. It even choked me up a little.
So now I pay a bit more attention when I'm picking peppers from the grocery store.
Your wife is a spoilsport.
AND long-suffering.
Aside from pepper/spice reactions like Mr Guenther describes, my position is this, speaking as one who thinks cooking is a lot of trouble but enjoys most others' cooking: I'm in no position to complain about what the cook prepares, especially after having agreed when the cook gave warning/advise.
Cook away, Grim. "Mildly spicy" is as vaguely defined as "spicy."
Eric Hines
Me: How medium is medium?
Thai gent: It doesn't have the disclaimer.
Me: Mild, please.
I can handle hot Mexican food, but not hot Thai/Laotian/Indian. Some medium Thai/Lao is enough to make me hurt for hours.
LittleRed1
I am reminded of going out to an Asian Fusion restaurant with cousins in Tallahassee. I ordered something w Szechuan in its name. Szechuan= hot- right? To make sure, I requested "hot." What I got was not hot at all. I requested more "hot." Did so several times. Not hot at all. Like a cousin said, "I don't think you're going to get hot." In Texas, "hot" isn't just for restaurants, but is common in home cooking, whether the households are Mexican or not. Not in Tallahassee.
Texas is an outlier when it comes to hot pepper use. (per capita hot pepper purchases...)
One time in Guatemala, I was adding hot peppers (cobaneros in vinegar) to beans. A fellow patron told me, "Tenga cuidado." (Be careful) My reply: No hay problema. (no problem-I had been eating them for years.) His reply: "Vd. es de Tejas" (You're from Texas).
One time I purchased some jalapenos at a Stop and Shop grocery in New England. The clerk made a big deal of it: "I just love hot peppers." Whereas in Texas, it is no big deal. Which is why Jalapenos are ~$1/lb in Texas and $4/lb in New England.(They may be more now. That info is old.)
When doing the backpacking trip in Peru, I purchased stuffed peppers (rocoto rellenos) at train stops and bus stops. Tasty, and not too hot. Maybe like anchos. When I was in the mountain town of Huaras, a hotel clerk invited me to eat a bit of a rocoto pepper. I commenced sweating. My heart palpitated. I was afraid I was going to have a heart attack. The difference is that the street vendors took out the veins and seeds before stuffing and cooking the rocotos.
One of the hotel clerks went w me on a short hike to see some ruins. Also another taught me some Quechua. Jocular, but outgoing. I commenced a 5 day mountain hike after leaving the bus. Other bus patrons told me that I would get robbed & assaulted on the trip. Knowing the jocular nature of the area, I just laughed. (This was before Sendero Luminoso. Sendero killed tourists as part of their job description.)
That's all the hot I got.
I love Thai food. We've got a great Thai place in Sylva, but it isn't hot. The lady who runs it is from Thailand, and just happened to move out here, so the food is quite authentic -- but never hot. When I can get hot Thai, though, I think it's awesome.
One time my sister sent me a jar of 85% pure Naga paste. That's the pepper that the Indian Army was turning into chemical weapons, until Americans learned about it and bred even hotter versions like the Scorpion and the Carolina Reaper. I ate a spoonful of it straight, and thought to myself, "Hot!" I smiled and went on about my day, though; I'd already been introduced to the Reaper before I met its grandaddy.
I'm not much for hot- I can tolerate a fair amount, but I don't *enjoy* it. Anyway, I was really bummed when our local Thai joint closed down recently, they knew us. Lot of that going around these parts- strong indicator for a deeply bad economy.
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