Originally published at: That's hot: why every food seems to have a spicy version | Boing Boing
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I am my own spicy version.
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Curiously masochistic humans! [Warning: teleology ahead] Plants evolve the capsaicins to keep their seeds from passing through the efficient destructive digestive systems of mammals; in preference to avians, who can’t sense capsaicins, and which spread their undigested seeds far and wide …and then humans end up liking the torture. haHa! take that simplistic evolutionary schemes!
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I grew up in NM, where just about everything seemed to have a variant with green chile added: burgers, pizza, apple pie… and I love all manner of spice, so I am mostly ok with this trend. I think I will pass on the spicy mountain dew though, partially because why? and partially because I am too old to guzzle fizzy HFCS.
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You probably don’t want your mid-afternoon almonds to taste like the hottest pepper in the world, the Carolina Reaper.
Yes I do. I keep a grinder full of ghost peppers by my plate so I can add a little zing to everything I eat.
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Ah, but domestication is actually a really good deal, so the plants still win.
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yeah! so if evolution was truly teleologic (which it 'tisn’t) then i’d have my chocolate flavored cherries variant by now… because then i’d selfish-gene cultivate the hell out of such a cultivar.
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What’s stranger yet is the speed with which it transformed cuisine globally. Try to imagine nearly any Asian, African or European cuisine without them. These plants simply did not exist outside of the Americas before first contact.
And don’t even get me started on tomatoes. I dare say no other food is as deservedly fetishized as the tomato.
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I make my own roasted green chilli and lime ice cream. Works really well!
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I don’t like spicy foods - so you all enjoy!
I saw a single chip for sale at Quick Trip for like $7.50 bucks.
Chilis associated with extend lifespan, observational, not interventional. People who eat chili pepper may live longer? -- ScienceDaily
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Or, furthering the teleology, hot peppers knew they’d spread to every corner of the world and be propagated to flavor mountain dew if they brought the spice.
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I love spicy foods.
I hate tomatoes.
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I appreciated the joke in Reservation Dogs of taking this naming convention to its logical conclusion:
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That’s because once you’re done eating something way too spicy for you, the world become little by little a better place as the burn fade away. And given the times we live in…
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Don’t eat that
Eta: now that I’m done my spicy nachoes…
Food dusted with reaper or other such hyper spicy pepper is less food and more gag gift/painful drug trip
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Was it a Paqui One Chip Challenge chip?
I second @CanadianBeaver’s recommendation not to eat that. They are basically the culinary equivalent of the tear gas chamber people suffer through in boot camp.
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You don’t have to tell me twice.
It was! And when I went there today, it was sold out.
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Peppers burn twice.
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