Temperature Wise

I like hot food, as in spicy. I like every kind of chili pepper ever cultivated -- from the mild bell peppers through the spicier jalapenos, serranos, poblanos, cayennes, habaneros, and Scotch bonnets. I suspect there are many I have not yet sampled, and just thinking about them makes me feel wistful. I've even tried growing my own, and you would think that at the very least, I could produce a Scotch bonnet in Scotland, but no -- this is not to be. The fiery Scotch bonnet requires a fiery climate, and however warm it sometimes gets here, it never approaches fiery.

When I was a kid, we were the only Anglo family I knew who frequented Mexican restaurants where only Latinos ate. Not for us the fancy tourist places where the waitresses were gotten up in flouncy skirts and the margueritas were big enough to put your face in. Our favorite place was a hole in the wall where they made their salsa with whole jalapenos instead of taking the usual gringo's way out and removing the seeds first. My father called this sauce, not salsa, and when he ordered tamales, tacos and quesadillas, he mangled the pronunciation despite his best efforts, but man, could he put away the salsa. He was a lean, spare, tall man who fueled his body on beans, rice and chili peppers. He grew them wholesale and we sometimes helped in the fields. The only time we didn't like peppers was when we forgot we'd been handling them and accidentally touched our eyes. If you ever do this by mistake, you'll know what I mean.

I tell you all this so that you'll know I'm not some pansy eater who dabs a little tabasco sauce on her food and thinks it's enough. We go through bottles of the stuff pretty fast in this family, as I married another spice-eater and we've been cultivating our kids. Our pantry is stocked with pepper sauce from various nations; as I write this, our refrigerator has two kinds of kimchi in it and an Indian pickle that has you reaching for a fire extinguisher.

For years in Japan, every so-called Korean, Thai, Mexican, or Indian restaurant I ate at was a sore disappointment, the level of heat geared to that of the tender Japanese palate. I'm not the kind of person who complains in restaurants, but once, having eaten at a place that promised piri-piri kimchi chige -- fiery cabbage stew -- I felt like weeping after one bland mouthful. It might as well have been stuffed cabbage -- and not Hungarian, either. I was on the point of mentioning it to the waitress -- in the politest sort of way -- when I overheard the conversation at the next table. Two customers, both apparently Japanese, had ordered the same dish. The woman had one hand over her mouth and was reaching for her glass with the other. "Karai!" she squealed, fanning her face. "Too hot! I can't eat it!"

I decided not to say anything.

Then a new Indian restaurant opened up in Tokyo. It looked promising, and hope springs eternal, so I went there for lunch one day. The waiter took my order and asked if I wanted it spicy.

Now, I had been down this road before. At every single restaurant, I had asked the waiter or waitress to spice it up to the maximum -- that I could take it -- and still ended up with pablum. So I laid it on thick for this man. I told him to make it as spicy as he possibly could -- Indian style spicy was fine.

"Are you absolutely sure?" he asked, and I assured him I was. He shook his head and went off to get my order.

Let me tell you, he took me at my word. I knew that what I'd ordered was spicy when my spoon was half an inch from my mouth: I could feel the fumes, and they made my mouth -- and eyes -- water. A large window separated the kitchen from the diners so that you could watch the cooks rolling out chappatis into paper-thin circles and peeling steaming triangles of naan out of tandoori ovens. As I took my first bite, they were all there at the window, watching. I swear they'd placed bets on me.

I took a bite and almost choked. I'd never had anything so hot in all my life. Even the sauce in my father's beloved Templo Del Sol was less spicy, studded with jalapeno seeds though it was. I took another bite and that was hotter still. They say that water will not quench the fire of chilis; that it is better to eat yogurt or rice to take away the heat, but I had no choice. I got through five glasses of water during that lunch, and I was glad to have them. And I finished every single bit of that curry, using my naan to sop up the sauce. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw one of the cooks nudge another, a wide smile on his face. His companion looked glum -- like he'd backed the losing horse.

No doubt about it: someone made some money on me. I should have asked for my cut.