Some Like it Hot
Today when I groped among the condiments on the bottom shelf in the refrigerator door for the tube of wasabi, I realized that our refrigerator might contain more than the typical supply of hot food. No, the refrigerator had not turned itself into an oven. It was working as it should. Food hotness here is a gustatory term.
Also on the bottom shelf were a tube of hot mustard, and a metal spice tin of hot curry powder (hot because it contains more than the usual amount of hot pepper in the spice mix). The horseradish sauce took up space on another shelf in the door, and in the cabinet itself was a jar of pickled jalapeno peppers. A number of other items also contained hot peppers.
We eat the wasabi with somen (an Asian noodle dish). The hot mustard goes with sliced and fried zucchini, along with an anointing of soy sauce, eaten with rice. The horseradish is spread on sausage, and the pickled hot peppers appear on the table whenever the other food is bland, such as when we have macaroni and cheese, ham and potatoes, or chicken and noodles. Hot sauces are dribbled over any south-of-the-border foods, and salsa tops scrambled eggs.
I didn't grow up eating all of these condiments. We had horseradish occasionally and, after my Salvadoran brothers joined the family, we learned to eat hot sauce and pickled hot peppers. But Hiromi knew all about hot foods from childhood on, and so we incorporated them into our family's food habits early on. All our boys love these foods.
Harry (co-teacher) used to say he thought that it didn't make sense to torture yourself [with hot foods] while you were eating. I thought he wasn't very open-minded on this subject. What I wish now I could have thought of saying then was that closing your mind to what might eventually turn into a very enjoyable experience didn't make much sense either.
I don't know much about the nutritional makeup of most hot foods. But hot peppers have powerful anti-inflammatory ingredients and lots of vitamin C.
My philosophy is that it's worthwhile to learn to eat these lively foods, both for the sake of your own health and the convenience of being able to enjoy them when you sample other cuisines. The inconvenience of determined abstinence seems worse to me than any misery that might accompany cautious sampling and subsequent acquired toleration--or enjoyment--of these foods.
******************
I'm told that Spanish has different words for spicy hotness and temperature hotness. I wish English had similarly differentiating words.
Today the temperature was still 105 degrees at 5:00. And no, I was not out there trying to get used to the hotness. I was inside, in air conditioned comfort. At the extremes, learning to tolerate hotness definitely has its limits. But in moderation, hotness is a good thing. If it's 105 degree temperatures or habaneros eaten straight, I will politely just say no. But wasabi on somen or hot mustard on fried zucchini? Yum.
Also on the bottom shelf were a tube of hot mustard, and a metal spice tin of hot curry powder (hot because it contains more than the usual amount of hot pepper in the spice mix). The horseradish sauce took up space on another shelf in the door, and in the cabinet itself was a jar of pickled jalapeno peppers. A number of other items also contained hot peppers.
We eat the wasabi with somen (an Asian noodle dish). The hot mustard goes with sliced and fried zucchini, along with an anointing of soy sauce, eaten with rice. The horseradish is spread on sausage, and the pickled hot peppers appear on the table whenever the other food is bland, such as when we have macaroni and cheese, ham and potatoes, or chicken and noodles. Hot sauces are dribbled over any south-of-the-border foods, and salsa tops scrambled eggs.
I didn't grow up eating all of these condiments. We had horseradish occasionally and, after my Salvadoran brothers joined the family, we learned to eat hot sauce and pickled hot peppers. But Hiromi knew all about hot foods from childhood on, and so we incorporated them into our family's food habits early on. All our boys love these foods.
Harry (co-teacher) used to say he thought that it didn't make sense to torture yourself [with hot foods] while you were eating. I thought he wasn't very open-minded on this subject. What I wish now I could have thought of saying then was that closing your mind to what might eventually turn into a very enjoyable experience didn't make much sense either.
I don't know much about the nutritional makeup of most hot foods. But hot peppers have powerful anti-inflammatory ingredients and lots of vitamin C.
My philosophy is that it's worthwhile to learn to eat these lively foods, both for the sake of your own health and the convenience of being able to enjoy them when you sample other cuisines. The inconvenience of determined abstinence seems worse to me than any misery that might accompany cautious sampling and subsequent acquired toleration--or enjoyment--of these foods.
******************
I'm told that Spanish has different words for spicy hotness and temperature hotness. I wish English had similarly differentiating words.
Today the temperature was still 105 degrees at 5:00. And no, I was not out there trying to get used to the hotness. I was inside, in air conditioned comfort. At the extremes, learning to tolerate hotness definitely has its limits. But in moderation, hotness is a good thing. If it's 105 degree temperatures or habaneros eaten straight, I will politely just say no. But wasabi on somen or hot mustard on fried zucchini? Yum.
posted by Mrs. I at
7:41 PM
1 Comments:
I enjoyed our 80-85 degrees yesterday. I admit--I don't miss 105 degree days. As to the hot tastes in the frig--well--I enjoy trying those things, and use horseradish, spiced mustard, hot sauce, salsa, etc.,but a little bit goes a long ways.
By
Dorcas Byler, at 7/15/2009
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