Feel the burn (or not)
Lots of people like some chilli spice, and some like it hot as...s.
Chilli sauce-makers are a creative lot when it comes to naming their products. Some of the punniest ones I've seen include Rectal Rampage, Weapon of Ass Destruction, Let One Rip, No Wimps Allowed Hot Sauce, Satan's Blood, and the very cringey Smack My Ass & Call Me Sally. There's seemingly no end (pun intended) to the possibilities.
I'm not a chilli fan. It's unlikely that I'll ever subject my gut to the kind of assault these names suggest. A sauce that tastes delightfully hot and spicy to my husband represents only pain and suffering for me.
However, I'm fascinated by the desire of those who love chillies – aka chilli heads – to subject their senses to ‘the burn.'
I've always thought a good chilli sauce had just two qualities to recommend it – heat and flavour – but it's a lot more complicated than that.
It's technically all about sensation. Humans have specific receptors for heat, as in hot temperatures. But these sensors react in the same way to the ‘heat' produced when eating chillies, black pepper, ginger, wasabi, and other 'hot' foods. Your mouth feels like it's burning – check out the box at right as to why – and some people enjoy this sensation.
Chilli fans have a way of talking about and comparing chillies. A pepper's heat is defined by its intensity, and four other factors:
■ how the heat starts, ie is it instant or does it build up?;
■ how long the burning sensation lasts;
■ where it hits you, physically;
■ whether it has a ‘sharp' or ‘flat' quality. Sharp feels like jabbing pins in your mouth. Flat is more like having the heat painted onto your tongue or smeared around the inside of your mouth.
I'm not a thrillseeker or a masochist, but I do make a good peri peri sauce for the one I'm married to (recipe on page 41).
WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU FEEL THE BURN
There are plenty of videos online of people eating super-hot chillies. Most people start confidently but quickly begin burping and sweating.
That's because the ‘hot' ingredient in chillies – capsaicin – stimulates a pain response, not a taste response, says Dr John Prescott, experimental psychologist and the author of Taste Matters. The capsaicin binds to pain nerve fibres on the lips, mouth, and tongue, causing inflammation.
Mucous membranes are stimulated to flush it out, causing the nose and eyes to run and a watering mouth.
By this time, your brain believes your body is burning. You start sweating, and blood vessels on the skin dilate to help with cooling, giving you a flushed appearance.
Yoghurt and creamy milk help relieve the pain as capsaicin is fat-soluble. Source: www.vice.com