How spicy do you like your food?

[INTELBYTES]

Poll question: How spicy do you like your food?

Being from Texas the hotter my food the better. My taste buds have long since packed their bags and moved south to my anus. So how hot do you enjoy your food?

[Intelsucks]

1. Fix me up a China Syndrome salad with plutonium and cheese.

n/t

[AlienGirl]

2. I used to loooove hot stuff

I'd put Sriracha chili sauce on crackers for a snack.

Since having radiation, my mouth is way too sensitive for anything but very mild spice. :-(

Tucker

[Rowdyboy]

3. I have a gallon or so of homemade habanero hot sauce....

In flavors of spiced peach, mango, pineapple, and papaya. Your mouth bursts into flames, but, if you survive, the aftertaste is dynamite!

[rfranklin]

4. Try a little pricky-noo...

tiny little hot peppers from Thailand that will set your socks on fire.

[DuctapeFatwa]

5. I eat chilies with everything

except maybe ice cream.

[BootinUp]

6. jalapeno yes! habanero no

I like it hot, but leave the taste buds please. :P

[PDittie]

7. Have you ever played "Who es mas macho"

Take a fresh jalapeño -- not pickled -- and say:

"Who es mas macho....Fernando Lamas, Ricardo Montalban, ó mi?"

Then take a big bite. Repeat, using other famous Latin men's names, especially ones that require trilling the pronunciation, until only one man or woman is left standing.

Seriously, if my eyes aren't watering, it's not hot enough. This goes for salsa, con queso, Thai food, etc.

It needs to be hot enough to burn twice. Once today, and once tomorrow on the way out.

[disgruntled_goat]

8. make it hot, or make it not. n/t

[Nikia]

9. I like flavorable food

I live in Wisconsin though now where these people seem not to like anything even remotely spicy.
At work, we are having a chili cook off again this year. Last year, I made chili which I would describe as "medium" based a comparision to store bought salsa and nacho sauce which is categorized: mild, medium, or hot. The spiciness was definitely there but didn't leave a lasting burning mouth effect.
While many people liked my chili, several said that it was too hot and even the people who liked it described it as hot. The chili that won was the mildest and was more like tomato soup with hamburger in it. I was ticked about that. Some employees who voted for the mild stuff said that they didn't like hot chili.
I am sorry about the generalization but they seem to prefer plain meat and potatoes while I prefer good with some flavor.

[Intelsucks]

10. My brother-in-law is from Iowa, and he's just now starting to tolerate

spicy foods after moving to Texas 3 years ago. Those Northerners just don't do spicy. What we call mild, they call hot.

[Whitacre D_WI]

11. Hey now. Raised in Ohio, live in Wisconsin, LOVE it hot.

Pass the serranos, please.

[BiggJawn]

Oh, yes we do....

I like it so hot that burns your ass on it's way out the next day.

That's hot.

[Beaker]

18. spiciness is not "flavour"

educate your palate.

[Whitacre D_WI]

12. Pass the vindaloo.

Goanese style -- loads of pork and HOT.

[Intelsucks]

13. Who is that in your avatar picture?

It kind of looks like Sean Penn, but it's probably someone much older.

[Whitacre D_WI]

14. Right click on the pic, then click "properties."

Or just read the link next to the picture :)

[Intelsucks]

16. Damn! I should have known that!

:dunce:

[alarcojon]

15. Pass the Andhra Biryani!

B-)

[Beaker]

17. Ever since the onset of refrigeration-

I don't understand why anyone would even want to eat 'spicy hot' food...Why should eating be made to be a physically unpleasant experience??
The original reason for spices was to cover up the taste of the rotting food, and also act as a preservative by even killing off or protecting against some organisms...after all, there was no good way to keep it chilled, and who could afford to throw stuff away just because it smelled a little funny after a few days?...or a week or two...?
That's the big part of the reason why the spice trade and the spice routes were so important way back in them thar days of olde.
and why the cultures with the spiciest foods come from the hottest climates.

Refrigeration means never having to burn your tongue and mouth with spices.

and that's what civilization is all about.

[Intelsucks]

19. It's an "acquired" taste, just like dark beers.

I didn't like spicy food or dark beer many years ago, but now I like them both. Bite into that habanero pepper... It'll set you free!

[Beaker]

21. don't get me started on dark beer-

shit would probably be an aquired taste too, but I'll never know because I'm not gonna take that first bite.

[Intelsucks]

22. You don't like any of the dark beers at all?

:shrug:

[Beaker]

33. actually, I don't like beer, period.

but the dark stuff is xtra nasty.
Back when I was a drinkin' man, scotch was my poison...good scotch. the only alcohol I have these days is an occasional glass of red wine, or maybe a cuba libre every once in a great while.

[SOteric]

24. I'm sorry to report your information is wrong.

While it's true that many Eastern European countries used intense flavourings (usually coffee, chocolate, ginger, garlic, cardamom, mace and to disguise the taste of wood ash leaveners and meats on their way out, the burn of hot, peppery foods was not amoung them.

These items were added to foods for the two prominent reasons that:

• they grow mostly in harsh and forboding climates, and
  
• they help the body generate a cooling sweat in the hottest times of the year

Spicy flavourings are prominent in many colder climates, including the Szechuan and Hunan of China, various mountainous areas of Latin America and Asia.

Additionally, you'll find that many hotter climates, such as the Mediterranean, do not typically use intensely hot flavourings for their food.

You might want to review your culinary fundamentals, "spicey" is a flavour. It is one of 5 (sometimes 6) flavours the human palette can experience. Spicy, salty, sour, sweet, bitter and sometimes umami.

[Beaker]

34. then it looks like I'll have to look up my 4th grade teacher-

and beat his lyin' ass...

but when I talk about the flavour of the food I eat, I'm speaking in terms of things like chocolate, blackberry, garlic, vanilla, etc...to me, sour is not a "flavour", lemon is...or sour apple...and although I can think of lots of spicy flavours, I don't consider "spicy" by itself to be a "flavour".

mocha almond fudge- now that's a flavour.
strawberry-kiwi- that's a flavour.
peach, tangerine, rum raisin, etc. and on and on and on...

I'd hate to live in a world where there were only 6.

"...Spicy, salty, sour, sweet, bitter and sometimes umami."
-those would certainly make for a disappointing package of Lifesavers

[VOX]

20. It varies. Sometimes just barely. Other times, please nuke my head!

My dad was from El Paso, and his West Texas chili was enough to clear your sinuses for a week. :nuke:

Love you, dad. :hug:

[moroni]

23. Lived in Thailand hot AND delicious!

Great food, and it can get spicy. Try Laab Nua. The REAL stuff, not the cooked hamburger.

In northern Thailand, where I use to live (near Udornthani), they'd kill a cow at 4:00AM. A very fresh roast was sliced and finely minced. The meat was mixed with a variety of spices. Eaten with rice and lettuce later that day. "Chemically" cooked. Very spicy.

Hot does not equate to good flavor.

I understand that some of the hotter spices have a good amount of vitamins.

[SOteric]

25. I love hot, spicy foods.

Bring it on!

[lpbk2713]

26. I love wasabi.

The servers at Chinese reataurants give me strange looks when they see how much I use.

[stickdog]

27. 4 out of 5 stars.

Brandy Ho!

[GOPisEvil]

28. Hot, but not nucular!

:D

[populistmom]

29. I love spicy foods

Tonight I had Indian, and I prefer middle eastern spiciness over say Mexican (but Mexican's pretty good too), but I've been known to have these orgasmic experiences in my mouth from red pepper. (I know that sounds like I'm trying to be provacative, but I'm quite serious. Red pepper can cause vascular changes and they have that effect on some people.)

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[Habibi]

32. Why, you're right, GB!

I have never heard anything as funny as that phrase! ("My taste buds have long since packed their bags and moved south to my anus." This is a future fucking classic. Trust me.)

[Liberal Christian]

31. I love spicy food

But I like to be able to taste the food through the heat. I don't like food that's so hot that all I can taste is hot.

I've had great Ethiopian, Indian, Malaysian, Szechuan, Mexican, etc food that didn't make me prove I was some kind of macho gal, but that really augmented the flavor and made for a wonderful experience.

I guess I don't need steam coming out of my ears, but I don't mind a few drops of sweat on my forehead.

[AlFrankenFan]

35. I LOVE SPICY FOOD!

As spicy as food can get and more is how I enjoy my food. Red pepper aplenty to food items that don't hold spicy properties :)

[BritishHuman]

36. Big balti fan here.

I like my chilis tingly, don't mind a few jalapenos on my pizzas and regularly go out for a moderately hot curry.

I'd describe my level of spiciness as: makes me sweat, leaves my tongue buzzing, clears my sinuses and keeps me warm on the way home.

I can eat up to "painful", but I don't find the rush worth the agony, to be honest - I'll happily finish it, but wouldn't choose it.

Oh, and I've always found the Chili Judge article to be a truly great piece of humour about the effects of spicy foods.