Chili/spicy food!

[MissLadyM]

Seriously how do people enjoy this? I hat a dish tonight with king prawns and red chili. I tried to pick most of the chili off but by lordy it burned! How to people enjoy food that makes you feel unpleasant?!

The more you eat, the more your tolerance to the heat Lady. So, to you it was unpleasant but someone more used to eating spicy food wouldn't react the same. I say that as someone who has lost their tolerance to chillis and is slowly building it up again!

As above but grew up with chillis and love them, there’s such a variety in flavours!

I might start building up my tolerance. I hate having to avoid things, I like to be bold!

....it’s hot food. You knew it had chillis in it. Not liking spicy food isn’t being boring? How do people stand it: they like different things to you?

Its not unpleasant for me

I quite like it

So i eat spicy food

You build your tolerance with constant exposure. I am of Indian descent so I grew up with spicy food and I also live in the land of some of the world's hottest peppers so I love it but I've been eating it since I was 4 or 5.

I almost can't eat food that doesn't have a lot of heat and I mean tons of hot sauce, whole peppers etc (not black pepper or cayenne). It adds such amazing flavour to food.

I used to be like you. When I met DH, he always ate hot foods and I thought "Where's the pleasure in that? It hurts!" but you get used to it and then you can actually taste the food above the burn...and the burn doesn't burn any more like it used to.

Our kids were brought up on hottish foods and now they're 11 and 15 and eat the same as we do...have done for years.

I've gone as far as Carolina Reapers which do have a pleasant flavour but are absolutely ridiculous in terms of heat. It was painful but not in an entirely unpleasant way. A bit like how some people enjoy being spanked.

I've said too much.

Some of us will need to know a bit more about this spanking business.

I like spicy food, I’m used to it as that’s with what I was raised. I find most recipes from online/cook books I need to add much more seasoning/spices to make it taste to my preferences. It’s true that you build up a tolerance.

Usually, drinking milk will help alleviate the burn. Water spreads it out.

@TheKarateKitty

Shh.

I remember thinking that way- that chilli just killed all other flavours, and that it was just a physical sensation so why cover/prevent other flavours coming through? I remember watching my dad eat hot soup- sweating and red, crying happily from the heat- and thinking he was an idiot!

Nowadays I suppose I’d be considered fairly addicted. It’s been years since I found anything ‘too hot’ to enjoy. When I go to countries that don’t favour hot foods I find myself really missing and craving it. I find hot foods nuanced, and love detecting different types of hot. Currently obsessed with a Szechuan pepper/chilli condiment that is like magic for brightening up steamed veggies. I’m eating far more healthy food because the sauce makes it so yummy. The joy I used to get from salty carbs I now get from chilli.

Can’t wait for my DD to acclimatise to proper chilli (she’s enjoying quite spicy things already). Hope it isn’t discovered to be unhealthy, I don’t think I can give it up!