Jenn McKinlay: I was born and raised in Connecticut, the land of collars worn up, sockless Docksiders on, and microbrewery ale with a side of steak and potatoes. Back in the 80's we were not known for being spicy. I've been away for awhile so it could be that it's become more adventurous in the habanero arts, but I'm willing to bet it's still nothing like the state I ended up in, Arizona, with its love of all things HOT, HOTTER, HOTTEST.
One of my favorite memories is of trying to eat the "suicide wings" served at the infamous Long Wong's on Mill Ave in Tempe, which is sadly no longer there. My brother and sister-in-law were visiting and while we sat outside listening to Dead Hot Workshop play, the bro and I turned redder than the sauce we were consuming and some tears and snot were involved while my sis-in-law didn't even break a sweat. Respect! I think I burned a hole in my stomach that day.
A few years ago, my nephews and the hooligans brought me up to speed on a YouTube show called Hot Ones. Celebrities visit master interviewer Sean Evans and consume 10 wings of increasing hotness while answering his questions.
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| Sean Evans |
I'm not sure what it says about me that I enjoy watching these people suffer, but I do. Even better, though, the interviews are fantastic! Sean asks insightful point blank questions, and you come out feeling like you really know the subject, plus, you get to see if they can handle the heat. My personal favorite thus far being Paul Rudd:
As far as I’m concerned, a little bit of spicy hot goes a long way . . . I think of it as enjoying the flavor of the food rather than burning my mouth! :)
ReplyDeleteI’ve been in AZ almost 30 years so I’mve definitely become used to the heat.
DeleteJenn,
ReplyDeleteDid you like spicy food when you were a kid? I remember that I did not like spicy food as a kid. As I get older, I notice that I like spicy food. I remember once I had very spicy food that I got tears in my eyes my sinus definitely cleared up!
That's really cool about Paul Rudd. I'll have to watch that again.
Diana
No! I did not. But as I’ve gotten older, I have come to appreciate the burn.
DeleteMy cure for sinus problems is Chinese hot and sour soup
DeleteI love hot and sour soup. Great if you have stuffy nose or any congestion, scratchy throat and also works for headaches. Yeah, really.
DeleteJenn,
DeleteSame for me.
Rhys,
Thanks! I'll try Chinese hot and sour soup the next time I get sinus.
Judy,
Thanks!
I like some spice, but not so much that I can't taste the food. When I lived in New Mexico, I was a green-chili-not-red-chili girl all the way. And boy, do I miss me some good New Mexican green chili sauce! Yum, yum!
ReplyDeleteNew Mexico’s Hatch Valley chili peppers are my favorite! So much flavor - love, love love!
DeleteI can handle hot, but not such much anymore. I prefer to taste the food.
ReplyDeletegood point Dru, otherwise what's the point?
DeleteHa! I live in a frat house - it’s all about the pain. I gave one of the Hooligans a hot sauce making kit - not my best idea - lol.
DeleteI’ve lived in CT my entire life, and I prefer to taste the food, too. My brother, however, loves all sorts of hot sauces, and collects them. Once when I was visiting(he now lives near Philadelphia), I looked through a hot sauce catalog he orders from, and read some descriptions that were truly frightening. One sauce “can also be used to clean motor oil up from your driveway.” Turns out that’s his favorite! To him and to a couple of friends who love spicy food, I say “just drink it from the bottle instead of ruining perfectly good food!”
DeleteDebRo
Hi Deb, also born and raised in CT. My brother had a hot pepper growing business for a while and some of them would remove your skin if your didn't wear rubber gloves when you chopped them.
DeleteJudy, my brother mentioned that to me. And he had a bad experience once in his early days of using hot sauces when he prepared food while wearing gloves. Something got onto his hands when he took them off, and he didn’t notice. Then he went to the bathroom. He noticed! His kids, who were adolescents at the time, teased him unmercifully.
DeleteDebRo
Sadly, I cannot eat chilis due to a nightshade allergy diagnosed 2 years ago. The symptoms/side effects are becoming too nasty to ignore.
ReplyDeleteBut before that, a jalapeno or a green thai curry was about the hottest chili I could eat. I am still hoping that I can eat some NM green chili when I go to LCC2022 in Albuquerque NM.
Left Coast Crime - my heart just skipped a beat - let’s hope we can enjoy some chili’s there together! So sorry about your allergy! Food allergies are the worst because they’re so sneaky.
DeleteJENN: Yes, the severity of this nightshade food allergy varies quite a bit. Last time I ate some Lebanese food at LCC2021 San Diego, my eyes swelled shut and I had a body rash that lasted for weeks, so that was a bad reaction! But I am hoping that my body's autoimmune system will calm down in time for 2022.
DeleteYou are so right about growing up in Connecticut, but it's complicated. I loved "fireballs" when I was a kid, the sweet hard red candies with peppery centers. My dad couldn't believe it. But, we both loved hot mustard on hot dogs and horse radish on gefilte fish and the zingy red cocktail sauce served with shrimp cocktail. But, the hot Mexican or Thai or Middle Eastern spiciness that comes from hot peppers, that really was a new thing here in the 1980's.
ReplyDeleteI'd say that we've come a long way, Baby. You can now find the super hot dishes here. Personally, I will take the middle ground on the hot peppers. Flavor must come first, heat second. As for those contests Jenn, I prefer a good mystery.
ditto what Judy says, both about CT and heat!
DeleteI find Thai to be even hotter than Mexican. When they ask how hot do you want it - they are not playing. Then the dudes start talking about scoville heat index and Carolina reapers vs. ghost peppers - it’s too much!
DeleteThis is a topic my husband and I talk about often, because neither of us were raised with much exposure to strong spices of any kind. Now, I love strongly flavored foods, and I keep a wide array of spices on hand. I love the way different ethnic traditions blend spices to different effect.
ReplyDeleteBut as to "heat," I usually choose something at about a 7 or 8 on a 10-point scale. I CAN eat hotter things, but as others have already mentioned, I find that I don't taste the food at all if the "hot" is that extreme.
Yes, one of the sauces on the show - called Da Bomb - has no flavor but the burn is what usually breaks the guests.
DeleteI grew up in a suburb of Los Angeles. We ate lots of American style Mexican food but I didn't discover heat until I went to university in Orange county. I had a very good tolerance for so hot you're sweating and your sinuses are cleared out.
ReplyDeleteI always grow one habanero plant in a big pot. They're just getting ripe when frost threatens here, so I bring it inside and watch the little gold peppers ripen. I freeze them and all year I float one in a fish drew or a chili, because the flavor is exemplary.
Alas, with advancing age, I can't handle spice very much at all anymore. I hate having to order mild at a Thai or Chinese restaurant, but that's the reality these days.
It does change on you. I have a pepper garden with Fresno, habanero, and Serrano chili’s. We like to make our own salsa with them. Just a little of the hot ones though.
DeleteMy grandmother headed into her 80s complaining that she couldn't taste anything anymore. My aunt bought her a medium-hot salsa, and Grandma was in LOVE!!!! Woke her tastebuds right up.
DeleteNo tolerance for hot and spicy here, I'm afraid. I wish I were capable of enjoying heat, because - like Edith - I don't like ordering mild in a restaurant, but that's what I do. Oh well, that just leaves more jalapeños for the connoisseurs out there!
ReplyDeleteMy dad was a bland eater his entire life but loved to watch his work crew have spicy pepper eating contests. He probably would have loved this show but like you he’d be fine letting others enjoy the heat.
DeleteShalom Reds and readers,
ReplyDeleteAbout 35, 40 years ago, my best friend was a fellow about the same age as me; he was from the state of Kerala in India and we worked together and hung out a lot. We ate at quite a few Indian restaurants in Manhattan; but our favorite was a fine dining Indian restaurant on Park Avenue. I would order “mildly” spiced food. I always enjoyed the food but even at the smell of spices, I would sweat. It was like a fountain opened up on the crown of my head and ran down all over. I would use those large white cloth napkins to try and staunch the flow but no luck. I simply had to endure it until we got to dessert.
Now I live in the suburbs of Philadelphia and I don’t think I’ve had Indian food in just about 30 years. There’s one restaurant here in town, I think. But I haven’t eaten there. I reached out to my friend about 15 or so years ago and I have contact information, but we don’t keep in touch. Then we were 30 something and now we are sixty something.
I miss eating in restaurants, “spicy” food or not. I wonder if that will change any time soon. Everyone is talking about the “vaccine” but I am skeptical. Oh, well.
I miss restaurants, too! Indian food on Park Avenue sounds great to me. Sigh.
DeleteThis Paul Rudd is so “ yummy “ but that show is crazy . I like to taste food but unfortunately, hot spices often conceal the tastes and my stomach can’t stand spices.
ReplyDeleteHe is adorable. There’s a bit on the show where he looks at Sean and says, “Look at us” that’s gone viral. You just have to love the Rudd.
DeleteOkay darling Jenn, this is officially the most unique blog ever! Ahhhhh —taco sauce. Chili. Wings with bleu cheese. I guess I’m ...medium. I love it a little spicy—so you notice.
ReplyDeleteBut I am the one who puts on sour cream before it gets to the crying and choking stage. Xxxx But this now made me hungry. ❤️
My pepper garden is about ready to harvest. I have spice on the brain and, oh, I love sour cream. Hub thinks I’m crazy!
DeleteLOVE sour cream. It just has a terrible name. Tell him it's--fluffy cream. Or--super sauce. Ambrosia delight.
DeleteSo you watch Ted Lasso?
ReplyDeleteI just looked it up - now it’s in my queue!
DeleteYOU HAVE TO WATCH IT!!! And don't give up. You'll question at first--but just go on. xoxooo
DeleteWhen it comes to food, the only hot and spicy I can handle is regular Doritos. I never really liked hot and spicy food to begin with but it's an issue for me health-wise according to my doctor. Hell, he doesn't even want me to have the Doritos, but every once in a while I just can't help myself.
ReplyDeleteI don't even have spicy mustard. I'll take plain and boring and less admonition from my doctor, thank you very much.
Doctors are total buzz kills, but, yeah, you have to do what they say. Darn it. LOVE Doritos.
DeleteJenn, you are hilarious. Love the photos of the family with hot stuff!
ReplyDeleteWe are adventurous eaters in our family, and mostly will try new things as offered. However, I'm not a fan of searing my tastebuds to the point of not being able to taste the food. What is the purpose?
When we were in Tanzania the guy of the other couple on safari with us had his own bottle of pieri pieri sauce (in case they didn't have any at each of the lodges), and he doused EVERYTHING with it, the hotter the better. There was no way he could taste the delicious food we were served, which he complained about the entire trip.
There's an article on BBC Travel this morning about what authentic Mexican food really is. "Hot" is not a part of it, apparently.
When my kids lived in Mexico we were to a couple of great restaurants. Food really mild there. More like European
DeleteThere are so many different types of Mexican food - it really varies by region Baja, Sonoran, Oaxaca, Veracruz - all very different and some aren’t that spicy. We’re so lucky in AZ to have so restaurants that represent the different regions. When I was an elementary school librarian, the littles would bring little vials of homemade hot sauce to jazz up their school lunch.
DeleteHot is not for me! Medium is about as warm as I will go. But I do enjoy watching other people torture themselves in that kind of competition.
ReplyDeleteI know, right? So fun! I love it when it’s so hot, they can’t even answer the question. LOL.
DeleteI joke that my taste buds were burned off in childhood. There may be some truth to that as whenever my brother babysat for me, I would suck my thumb to annoy him, and he would put Tabasco sauce under my thumbnail to deter me. I would lap it up. In his defense, he's nine years older than I am and was often stuck with me.
ReplyDeleteMy husband spent a lot of time in Arizona and he is addicted to hot sauce. We always have at least three brands in our fridge. Our favorite, Arizona Gunslinger. It has a good bit of vinegar and is just yum! We joke my husband would put it on ice cream. I hold off for more hot sauce appropriate dishes.
Well, that’s one way to build up a tolerance. I love Tabasco and Frank’s Red Hot, too. AZ Gunslinger is a good one!
DeleteKait, one time I bought some hot sauce for my spice-loving brother when I stopped off at a hot sauce store while on vacation. The proprietor told me he does like to put a dab of certain sauces on ice cream occasionally. He could be my brother’s long-lost twin.
DeleteDebRo
Kait, that is so funny about your brother!
DeleteJenn - ah yes, Frank's is a regular at our house, too!
DeleteDeb - So far as I know hubs hasn't tried it...yet. Your comment may encourage him to try.
Karen - yes, poor guy. He was always so good-natured about having me tag along. It wasn't until I grew up that I realized how hard it must have been for him.
I’ve always been a hot food wimp. John used to be sales manager for Air India so cooking curries was a requirement but frankly if you make them too hot you don’t taste the food. I think we are raising a generation with no taste buds
ReplyDeleteWhat gets me is the amount of heat these little peppers can generate and they’re cultivating hotter ones every day. Madness!
DeleteI remember my grandmother had a couple of bottles of chilies in the pantry with vinegar. These were little chilies, one bottle of red and one of green. She would add more vinegar when it got low. I don't think I actually saw her use it but she must have if she replaced the vinegar. My nephew likes to see how much he can tolerate and his sister eggs him on to try the smaller raw fresh chilies. I don't know why but he does accept the challenge. I like a bit of horseradish with my pot roasts and I have a recipe for Cranberry Green Chili sauce that uses mild, canned green chilies or canned jalapenos and lots of vinegar. I only buy chili sauce when a recipe calls for it and then it sits in refrigerator until I toss it the following year.
ReplyDeleteHomemade - that’s what we’re going for here. Hooligan Hot Sauce by the dudes. One of them got a hot sauce kit for Christmas. We’ll see how it goes!
DeleteI keep a bottle of olive oil with chilis for Mexican style cooking. I must have had this bottle for fifteen years or more. I add whatever is low as needed. It gives a good flavor.
DeleteI grew up in a really bland corner of a really bland state, daughter to a women who thought marinara was too spicy. In other words, when I moved to Texas I had zero tolerance for spice. I still believe food should not be painful, but I've inched gently into mild salsas and creamy jalapeño dip. I will never chug the habanero juice, but I can now tolerate a tiny bit of heat.
ReplyDeleteTX is a lot like AZ but y'all have BBQ - which is a whole other category of awesome eating.
DeleteI grew up eating Tex-Mex and it was mild to spicy but never hot. This was back in the good old days before someone discovered cilantro. I find hot sauce kills the flavor of the food so I don't indulge. It really irks me when it is crawfish season and someone overspices the boil. You can't taste the sweet crawdad meat, just peppers.
ReplyDeleteOh, that is a shame. Love crawfish!
DeleteIf it doesn't say mild on it, it is too hot for me.
ReplyDeleteLOL!
DeleteI'm a wimp when it come to spicy, too. I like a little heat but not much. My spice cabinet is full of hot sauces people have given me and that I'm too chicken to try. I DO love traveling to Arizona where even the tiniest strip mall restaurant has great Tex-Mex food, esp as compared to what we can get here in the Boston area. Is the Tres Molinas still in business?
ReplyDeleteI don't know Tres Molinas but I do know Los Dos Molinas is still here and last I heard they opened another restaurant in Manhattan!
DeleteRIGHT! Dos... not tres.
DeleteI like hot sauce but some of them give me coughing spells. I had to stop eating a wonderful tortilla soup in Mexico City and food at an Indian restaurant in Harrisburg. A waitress told me that bread helps more than water or milk. Stay safe and well.
ReplyDeleteI heard that about bread or tortilla chips, too! Blankets the fire!
ReplyDeleteI love hot sauce, and I love loving hot sauce. I like going to a restaurant and seeing the incredulous looks on the servers faces when I ask for a hotter sauce. After all, this petite blond woman can’t possibly take real heat. .
ReplyDeleteOk, yes, I do get a kick out of surprising people with my ability to take the heat, but I really do like the flavors and the tingle on my tongue. It’s not a stunt. I won’t down a whole scotch bonnet just because someone dares me. And I do test out a small amount when I’m trying a new pepper for the first time. I’m no dummy. I know there are peppers out there that could do me in. What’s the fun in that? I am also looking forward to trying some new flavors at Left Coast Crime in NM.