103 lines
6.2 KiB
Plaintext
103 lines
6.2 KiB
Plaintext
Going for the culinary burn:
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Why Americans love hot food
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I once saw a TV documentary about the coming-of-age ceremonies for
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pubescent boys, in New Guinea. One of the more pleasant rites involved reaming
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the boys' nostrils with wire-sharp blades of grass. The theory, as near as I
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could tell, was that if the kids could withstand the pain, they were ready to
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become men.
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That image came back to me during a visit to a new Thai restaurant in San
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Francisco. I had just dipped into a bowl of innocent-looking fish soup when a
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fire erupted in my mouth that blazed so hot I thought my eyeballs were going to
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explode.
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Here I was, a grown man, sweating like a hog, my tongue almost numb with
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pain, on the verge of tears, while all around me women and children of Asian
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extraction were happily slurping up bowls of the stuff without so much as a
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wince or a grimace.
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They were obviously hot-pepper initiates. I was still a culinary
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prepubescent.
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To begin my own rite of passage, I sought out my friend Geoff Smith, a
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pepperhead who spent three years as a Peace Corps volunteer in West Africa.
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There he learned that what Americans call hot, Africans think of as mild. What
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they call hot, we would call lethal.
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To illustrate the African quest for fire, Geoff took me to an Ethiopian
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restaurant in Berkeley called the Blue Nile. Things got off to a comfortable
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start. The meat stew we were served was very spicy by most standards, but
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bearable. Geoff, however, insisted the meal was much too bland, and motioned
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for the waitress.
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"Can we have berbere sauce?" he asked. Her eyes sparkled like wet black
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coal, and she returned with a small dish of red sauce. We spread some of it on
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bread and dipped that into the stew. Here was true fire - seemingly mild at
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first, but building to a wave of searing mouth pain.
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"Don't think of it as pain," Geoff corrected. "Think of it as a glow in
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the mouth."
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At the moment, my glow felt more like a core meltdown, but I closed my
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eyes. After 5 or 10 minutes of eating, the fires banked themselves into
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something that might be described as a glow, albeit a very intense one. It was
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not entirely unpleasant.
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There followed a few months of practice, during which I actually began to
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grow more fond of hot, spicy food. Eventually, Geoff felt I was ready for a
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taste of Roberts Crushed Peppers, a product that's the oral equivalent of
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wire-sharp blades of grass.
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The label says it's made in Kingston, Jamaica, but I think it's forged in
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the fires of hell. The label on the bottle shows a rather strange-looking
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stubby orange pepper, which I've since come to learn is the much-feared
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habanero, generally accepted to be the hottest pepper on Earth.
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A little perspective: The burn delivered by chiles comes courtesy of
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capsaicin, a substance found ill blister-like sacs in the fruit's interior
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lining. Scientists measure the heat of a pepper in Scoville units, which
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indicate parts per million of capsaicin.
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Jalapenos - peppers most people I know think of as really hot - rate about
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2,500 to 5,000 Scoville units. The Thai peppers in that soup I ate shoot up to
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about 50,000 units. The fearsome habanero stands alone at the top of the scale
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with a scorching 100,000 to 300,000 Scoville units.
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Why would anyone, least of all a pleasure-loving guy like me, want to
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subject himself to such a trial by fire? Partly, says Paul Rozin, a psychology
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professor at the University of Pennsylvania, because hot peppers hurt so good.
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He hypothesizes that eating chiles releases into the brain or bloodstream
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a flood of morphine-like endorphins - the same brain chemicals thought to cause
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the so called "runner's high" - enhancing our enjoyment of the food we're
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eating.
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But chiles not only add life to your food, they're quite good for your
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health. Specialists at Mahidol University in Bangkok, Thailand, have found
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that a regular diet of hot peppers correlates with the body's ability to
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dissolve potentially harmful blood clots, potentially lowering the risk of
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certain heart problems. And other research shows that in some cases peppers
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may have an anti-cancer effect.
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Capsaicin sets just about all of your body's juices flowing: You salivate,
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your nose runs, you sweat, and your digestive juices flow like crazy. The
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effects are so pronounced that they can relieve the congestion of colds or
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bronchitis.
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Now that I've passed my initiation into pepper manhood, I cook with chiles
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quite often. One of my favorite recipes, which I got from a great little
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magazine called The Whole Chile Pepper, is for an all purpose sauce made with
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dried red peppers. The magazine rates the sauce a 7 on a heat scale of 1 to
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10, an assessment I agree with.
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To make the sauce, you'll need 10 to 12 dried whole chiles; 1 large onion,
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chopped; 3 cloves garlic, chopped; and 3 cups of water.
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Start, by placing the chiles on a baking pan in a 250-degree oven and bake
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about 15 minutes or until the peppers smell toasted.
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Remove the stems and seeds, and crumble the toasted chiles into a
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saucepan. Next, add the onion, garlic and water. Bring the mixture to a boil.
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Reduce heat and simmer 20 to 30 minutes or until the chiles are soft.
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Puree the mixture in a blender, then strain. If the sauce is too thin,
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place it back on the stove and simmer until it is reduced to the desired
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consistency.
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I use the sauce on Mexican or Southwestern dishes such as enchiladas,
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tacos and burritos, or to spice up chicken and fish dishes.
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QUENCHING THE FLAMES
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If you're a lover of chile peppers, you've probably already discovered
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that even a tall glass of water won't douse the flaming pain. That's because
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capsaicin, the stuff that makes hot peppers hot, s soluble in oil but not in
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water.
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Apparently the oil floats the capsaicin off the skin. Milk, sour cream
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and yogurt - all of which contain milk fat - are traditionally used to cool
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down overheated mouths.
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Alcohol dissolves capsaicin, too, which is why beer and mexican food work
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so well together. Rice and bread also seem to be effective in putting out the
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fire.
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-- Jeff Cox
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