Some Like It Hot

 I go out for breakfast about three times per week at my favorite local hole-in-the-wall diner. Naturally, they know me pretty well there. As soon as I walk in the door a server (usually Dawn) sets down a mug of coffee (black) and a bottle of Tabasco sauce at an available booth (isolated by plastic barriers these days). I haven’t had to ask for the hot sauce in years. My breakfast choice varies (or more accurately cycles) among chili jalapeno omelet, country fried steak and eggs (over easy), eggs on prime rib hash, breakfast burrito, blueberry pancakes with a side of sausage, and a few others. Hot sauce goes on all of them – OK, not on the pancakes, but on the side of sausage. It doesn’t have to be Tabasco. Pretty much any brand will do, but of the two available at the diner that’s my preference. (Another [pre-covid] customer once asked me if I was a Roswell alien, an obscure pop culture reference I actually got.)

A peek in my fridge

People differ in their taste for spice. Mine probably originated in childhood from my mom’s theory that no meal preparation can go so far wrong that it can’t be rescued by enough black pepper. My dad didn’t agree (he didn’t complain but he didn’t agree) but to me a crust of peppery seasoning on just about anything seemed perfectly normal. Soon after I started making or buying my own meals I upped the ante with chili peppers and hot sauces. They are an acquired taste rather than an innate one. People raised with blander food traditions usually have to be eased into an appreciation for hot spices, if they ever acquire one at all. (Curries are good way to start, since they can be stepped up gradually from mild to fiery.) The reason is biological: hot spices trigger pain receptors. Piperine (in black pepper) and capsaicin (in chili peppers) both fire TRPV1 receptors, mimicking the sensation of heat. Why is that pleasurable? Like the bite of high proof bourbon or the bitterness of strong coffee, the attraction is hard to explain to newbies. For someone acclimated to them, however, they enhance flavors in ways that are worth having sweat break out on one’s forehead.
 
Spices have a long (pre)history in human recipes. Coriander seeds have been found at a 23,000-year-old site in Israel. Traces of garlic mustard have been found in Danish pots dating back 6100 years. Romans poured garum on food as freely as Americans pour ketchup. Garum is a spicy fermented fish sauce, which is a bit much even for my taste though such sauces are still common in some Asian cuisines. The European Age of Discovery was prompted by a search for spices – or rather by the profits from spices. The jackpot was found in the New World. In 1400 chili peppers existed only in a swath from Mexico (where they were first cultivated) to western South America. Today they are grown and eaten all over the world, though they are still most strongly identified with Mexican cooking.
 
Nevertheless, spice preferences are literally a matter of taste. I’d never argue with anyone who prefers mild to hot salsa. The right amount of pepper at any given degree of hotness on the Scoville scale is the amount you like, whether zero or a fistful. Besides, people differ in their gastric acid responses: the same chili pepper that settles one person’s stomach will give another heartburn. However, if you are gastronomically tolerant of piperine and capsaicin, there are a number of health benefits from liberal doses of them.
 
According to the Penn Medicine website red chili peppers have been shown to reduce LDL cholesterol and to lower the risk of stroke and heart disease. By notching up one’s metabolism they promote weight loss. Once it gets past the stomach (where, once again, people differ in gastric acid response) capsaicin aids in digestion and gut health by attaching to receptors that release anandamide, an anti-inflammatory. Capsaicin even has value as a topical treatment for pain relief by first firing and then numbing pain receptors.
 
Today I’m skipping breakfast but a steak-and-cheese quesadilla is calling out to me for lunch. I have just the right ghost pepper salsa for it.
 
 

Donna Summer – Hot Stuff