2w ago

Getting used to chili

These are the hottest things I’ve ever tasted, and here’s my journey to spicy chips.

A few months ago, I decided to try some spicy potato chips. They were interesting, and next weekend I tried something hotter. They were actually really good, so I kept on trying hotter and hotter things every week, until I ran out of options at the local supermarket.

Yesterday, I visited my local Turkish supermarket, which sells all sorts of weird things I’ve never seen before. They even had a bunch of potato chips from obscure brands that are probably normal in Turkey and Middle-East.

Among those, I found these… non-potato chip thingies. Nevertheless, they’re, by far, the hottest thing I’ve ever tried. At first, I just took a tiny little crumb. It burned so hard, but after a while I was ok. Then I took another crumb, it was really hot etc. After about an hour, my mouth was strangely getting adapted to chili, so I could take small bites too. It just escalated from there, and less than 24 hours later the bag was empty.

What a weird experience! I never thought you could get adapted to chili. I thought it would be equally hot all the time, but that’s not at all how it works.

15 comments

You can definitely get used to it but THAT fast? I've been slowly eating more and more spicy the past year going from Sriracha to ghost pepper. But it's addictive, I put something spicy in almost every meal now. If you like chili see if you can find a shop selling Mexican snacks and salsas. If you're in eastern Europe another alternative is Hungarian paprika which is a different flavor but can get very hot too.
And it seems my local imports store also sells these chili strips so now I gotta try them.
- Try them out, and let me know how it went. I really want to know are these really that spicy. I think they’re ultra super hot, but are they really though?
  
  Sadly turns out they've been banned here. Something about them causing stomach issues even though I couldn't find anything about it.
- But it's addictive, I put something spicy in almost every meal now.
  Wait til you try Mexican candy, for flavor I recommend you Pulparindos and for a little heat kick, Chaca Chaca.

When i was eight years old, I had chili at a fast food place. It came with a little satchel of "hot" sauce and I put it in, over the advice of my father.
It was so hot I burst into tears.
Now I routinely eat stuff like this (from the red side only!) and barely break a sweat, and that tear-inducing chili wouldn't even register as trying to be spicy:
Tolerance building is an actual thing.
- It’s really weird. Now I’m beginning to understand those chili eating competitions, habanero challenges and all that. If you’ve been doing this for years, you can probably eat just about anything. I built a surprising amount of tolerance in a day, but then again, I did start from zero.
  
  I don't know what those Turkish things are, but perhaps Chinese 辣条 (lit. "spicy strip") could take their place if you'd prefer something more chewy in texture. They come in a bewildering variety of flavours, textures, and spice levels that range from "huh, that's got a bit of a bite" to "OMFGICAN'TFEELMYMOUTHTHROUGHTHEFLAMES!".
  This one is on the lower end of medium spice and is intended to be "beef" flavoured. It's OK. Not spicy enough for my needs, though.

Be advised that different cuisines use different chillies which hit differently.
I lived in the US for a few years and when I went out for curry, the staff would warn me that some of their curries were hot... until they realised I was a Brit at which point they were like 'ok, enjoy'. I could out-spice all of my American spicehead friends with curries. But some of the Mexican food I tried blew my head off completely while not especially bothering my American friends. I got used to that too but it took some acclimatisation.
- Oh, that’s weird. It thought it was all about capsaicin. Then again, food chemistry is incredibly complex, so unexpected interactions with other compounds is the norm.

It's definitely an acquired taste you can get adapted to! Ever since I got into spicy foods, I've had to have extra chilli ever since!
- OMG, it’s game over then. Normally when I have food at restaurant, I prefer to take the 🌶️ option, but maybe in the future the maxed out 🌶️🌶️🌶️isn’t enough.
  
  When that happens I take a break for a couple weeks and after a break the sensitivitity to spiciness returns!

Kettle brand Habañero Lime are my current fave, but I can only eat a handful at a time. And if you have a Kanker sore or something, then just forget about it lol.

15 comments