I still think deliberately eating something that creates discomfort, even extreme pain, is strange. The names of the sauces found primarily in markets in the Southwestern United States say all that needs to be said: “2-Hot 2-Trot Sensual Seasonings,” “Inferno,” “Tejas Tears Habanero Sauce” (“Hot Enough to Make You Cry”), “Chili Bob’s Mean Mother,” “Satan’s Revenge” and “Mad Dog Liquid Fire.”
I mean, why would anyone in his or her right mind want to add that to dinner or lunch?
Actually, some varieties of the Capsicum frutecens are quite mild and sweet, but many can only be called hot or fiery. Belonging to the same family as the tomato and the eggplant, they were introduced in Europe by (some say) Christopher Columbus or early Portuguese explorers, originating either in the Caribbean or Brazil. Magellan is credited with taking chili peppers to Africa, the Portuguese with taking them to Asia.
Today, chili peppers play a significant role in many cuisines— from Mexico, where they are used in ragouts and sauces ( moles), to the Middle East where they are pickled whole, to North Africa where they are used to season couscous with garlic. More chili is added to South Indian curries, while the Chinese make a purée called ra-yiu that is mostly oil-based, with fried soya bean and chili as additional incredients. So popular is chili in China that each province has its own brand.
Koreans use a chili paste to make kimchee and hot spicy soup. In Singapore, chili sauce must include garlic and ginger. In Malaysia and Indonesia, it is called sambal and often includes shrimp or dried fish. In Thailand, only a short walk from my flat, there are street vendors mixing and selling som tam, a five-alarm green papaya salad with lime juice and tomato and as many chopped peppers as you can stand; this dish once was a staple for the poor in Thailand’s impoverished northeast, but nowadays it’s hard to find a Thai menu anywhere worldwide that doesn’t include it.
In Hawaii, “chili peppa water,” which is a blend of what it sounds like, is found on every local restaurant table next to the pepper and salt. Throughout the United States chili pepper sauce has a large following, mainly through the sale of Tabasco sauce, manufactured in Louisiana and sold in tiny bottles internationally, and is used to season meat, egg and red kidney bean dishes, sauces and a number of cocktails, including the ever-fashionable Bloody Mary. Not long ago, for a year or so, chili sauce even out-sold ketchup in the States.
Just as different ingredients are added to the peppers from place to place, there are widely varying ways of preparing the sauces. Tabasco is fermented in barrels for three years or longer, while in Thailand, the major ingredients—chili, flour and tomato paste—are merely blended together and there is no fermentation involved. Tabasco tastes somewhat sourer and, in fact, is hotter. It’s in the use of unprocessed, fresh, ripe chilis where Thailand rings all the loudest bells. Thais also like their sauce free-flowing, where in other countries around the region, the thicker and slower, the better.
Chili peppers should not be confused with pepper, by the way. Pepper, black or white, is produced by grinding the seeds, finely or coarsely, of plants of the specie Piper, while chilis are fruits. The chili peppers are the smaller of the two primary types (the other variety is sweet and of no concern here) and they can be green, yellow, orange, red, or black. The smaller the pepper, the hotter it is. In fact, the hottest is the Capsicum minimum, indicating that somewhere in the academic realm where plants are given Latin names there was a botanist with a sense of humor. In Thailand, these are commonly called prik kee noo, politely translated as “mouse droppings peppers” after their half- to three-quarter-inch length and suggestive shapes. Noo being the word for mouse or rat, and kee being the word for you know what.
Despite this scornful imagery, chili peppers are now believed to be a possible medical miracle. Not only does the consumption of a single pepper provide a full day’s supply of beta-carotene and nearly twice the recommended daily allowance of Vitamin C for an adult, but also that magic ingredient called capsaicin, a compound found in the vegetable that controls pain and makes you feel better. What’s that? Makes me feel better?
Consider what happens when you bite into a chili pepper. You think you have Shock and Awe in your mouth, with smart (and dumb) bombs going off from lips to gums to tongue and throat. You’re certain that your taste buds have been defoliated. You break into a sweat and reach for your water glass to put out the fire. (A futile exercise, because capsaicin is barely soluble in water. Best thing is to drink milk because casein, one of the proteins in milk, specifically and directly counteracts the effects of capsaicin. Others swear by water mixed with a dash of salt.) Your eyes water and your nasal passages flood. You entertain evil thoughts about the chef and even Christopher Columbus.
At the same time, there may come a strange relief, a beneficial side effect. The messages sent to your brain are similar to those which mark pain and the brain responds to these by stimulating the secretion of extra endorphins, natural opiates that give pleasure. The endorphins then sooth or reduce existing pain not only in the mouth, but also throughout the body.
So far, studies suggest capsaicin reduces pain associated with arthritis, diabetes, muscle and joint problems, cluster headaches and phantom limbs. A study done at the famed Mayo Clinic in the U.S. further suggests that it reduces pain from post-surgical scars. Thus, many people who suffer from chronic pain are now being advised to eat spicy food, either as an alternative or as a supplement to analgesics. It is, then, quite literally, fighting fire with fire.
Chili peppers possess other medicinal advantages. They alleviate symptoms of the common cold by breaking up congestion and keeping the airways clear. (Did you notice that your nose and eyes started running when you broke out in that initial sweat? A capsaicin nose spray is now being considered to relieve headaches and migraines.) Chili peppers also increase your metabolic rate, contributing to the success of a weight-loss program, contain an anti-oxidant that lowers the “bad” cholesterol, and scientists at the famed Max Planck Institute in Germany confirm Capsicum can prevent the formation of blood clots by lengthening the time it takes blood to coagulate.
If that isn’t enough to convert you—I’m beginning to think about heading for the nearest som tam street vendor as soon as I finish writing this—there is growing evidence that chili peppers will get you “high.” According to Dr. Paul Rozin, a psychologist at the University of Pennsylvania in the U.S. who has conducted several studies of the chili pepper, the comparison to opiates is not misplaced, although, unlike addictive morphine, a narcotic derived from opium, says “this is a natural and harmless high.”
My Thai chef friend, who is reading over my shoulder as I write this, is calling me the Thai equivalent of wimp. She keeps a jar of dried seeds in my kitchen and casually dumps them into soups and onto noodle and rice dishes in a manner that seems suicidal.
“Getting to like chili peppers is like playing with fire,” Dr. Rozin said. “Humans tend to put themselves voluntarily in situations which their body tells them to avoid—but humans tend to get pleasures out of these things, such as eating chili peppers or going on roller coaster rides. We are the only species that enjoys such things. No one has ever found an animal that likes to frighten itself.”