Life is too short to eat bland food. I didn’t come to this conclusion early in life. My upbringing was strictly meat and potatoes. It was only when I moved to Dallas and got exposed to Mexican and spicy Asian cuisines that my palate was piqued by peppers. Luckily, Julian is also fond of spicy food. Our refrigerator door has a collection of hot sauces, also known as the Arsenal of Democracy:
Practice safe eating, always use condiments.
This is only part of the Arsenal, but you get the idea. None of these is a pure capsaicin bomb, but the fire sauce on the lower shelf is pretty close.
We prefer our chiles with some flavor balancing the heat. The larger padron peppers featured in the last post accumulated some capsaicin, the active heat molecule in chiles. We’ll occasionally cook with hahañeros, but that’s as hot as we get.
Research is accumulating that consumption of spicy food has beneficial health effects, as outlined in this article. As with everything, correlation does not necessarily mean causation. Spicy food eaters may have other habits that are more linked to longevity. In the meantime, pass that Tabasco, please.
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