How to Eat Spicy Food
Spicy food is considered a mainstay for some cultures, while in other cultures, people may find it a little harder to swallow. However, if you are a true cuisine adventurer, learning how to eat spicy food is much-needed for true appreciation of different culinary styles. Here’s how.
Start Early
If you’re a parent, it’s never too early to start your kids on eating spicy food. Most people are not exposed to even the mildest kinds of spicy food in their youth, and later on consciously avoid eating them. When eating out with your family, visit restaurants that incorporate spices in different intensities of heat. Mexican and Chinese food should be familiar to kids, so you can start there.
Take it By Degrees
One sure way to surely turn people off spicy food forever is to eat very spicy food when they’re unprepared for it! The best way to learn how to eat spicy food is taking it by degrees. Start with mild spices or order milder versions of spicy foods, an option typically available in most restaurants. You can also try by mixing the hotter components into soups. The liquid will disperse the hot components, making them more bearable to eat.
Pepper
eating spicy foodBelieve it or not, cracked pepper is usually one of the best ways to start. Add pepper in your soup, pasta, rice or other meals where cracked pepper is appropriate.
Wasabi
The next time you eat Japanese food like sushi or sashimi, add the tiniest bit of wasabi in your soy sauce, or even directly on the food. Wasabi is very spicy, but in small amounts, can be bearable for even the most sensitive of tongues.
Mild Chili Sauce
Next time you reach out for that catsup bottle, why not reach out for the chili sauce instead? In some countries like Singapore, the practice is to use chili sauce on food that we typically associate with catsup. You can start from the mildest chili sauce such as Crystal Hot Sauce which hase medium heat. Sweet chili sauce are also typically very mild due to its sweet flavor.
Capasaicin
The hottest part of chilis and bell peppers are in the pith, which is the sticky stuff that holds the seeds of the chilis and bell peppers. Remove that if you want the bell peppers to be mildly hot. Leave more of the capasaicin on when you want the bell peppers or chilis to be hotter.
Venture
Taking it by degrees means that you have to move to hotter and spicier food when you’ve already gotten used to. You can make the experience more bearable by having any of these things at hand:
Yogurt
Milk
Ice cream
Sugar
Bread
Chocolate
Drinking dairy is much effective for getting rid of the heat off your tongue than cold water. Cold water can spread the heat from your tongue to your throat instead of helping relieve the heat! Eating a frozen yogurt or ice cream before eating spicy food can also help from the spiciness being too much to handle. As soon as your tonge is relieved, continue eating more of the spicy food to make your tongue get used to it.