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> I liken the use of chilli in cuisine to gratuitous violence in movies : a lazy fix for bland meals that otherwise wouldn't stand on their own feet. A smokescreen of burnt tastebuds to hide behind. A pain that I'm aware (but can't understand why) many people enjoy inflicting unto themselves.

Tyler Cowen is my go-to explainer for spicy food:

Mexicans acculturate their small children to spicy food gradually, by mixing increasing amounts of chilies into the meal. It takes a while before the kids enjoy it and at first they don't like it. If this has never been done to you, you need to make the leap yourself, usually later in life. The whole point of spicy food is that at first it is painful, causing the release of endorphins to the brain. With time the pain goes away and you still get the endorphins, although you may seek out an increasingly strong dose to boost the endorphin response.

Not all Americans think this is a good deal. Older people are less likely to make this initial investment and endure the initial pain. The same is true for uneducated people (adjusting for ethnicity), who both are less likely to know it will end up being a source of pleasure and who on average have higher discount rates. What other predictions can be made? If you and your country are too obsessed with dairy you will be led away from spicy food, one way or the other. Milk usually counteracts the pleasing effects of chilies.

That's wrong. Chile helps your taste buds taste fat. They really go together very well. It's what makes mixing chile with chocolate and cheese so great. It's similar to why salt+fat works. Fat numbs your taste buds and salt and chile 'wake them up'.

I was expecting endorphin release to come up in the Guardian article and was surprised when it didn't. Is there good science behind the chilli-endorphin idea?

> But how does capsaicin give us the sensation of “tongue on fire”? Capsaicin is the active component of chili peppers that produces a burning sensation in any tissue it comes in contact with. How does this signal get conveyed? There are three classes of nerve fiber in our central and peripheral nervous system – the ‘C’ type of nerve fiber are the ones that are stimulated by capsaicin – specifically the molecule binds to the vanilloid receptors (VR-1, TRPV1) on the nerve endings of the C-fibers. These receptors are ligand-gated ion channels that are closed in the absence of capsaicin. When they are stimulated by capsaicin, they open and allow an influx of sodium and calcium ions, which initiate an action potential across the fibers. This action potential is what allows us to feel the burn. Normally, physical heat stimulates these receptors. However, capsaicin can also interact with these receptors and activate proteins that cause the same signal to be transmitted to the brain into thinking that it is being burned.

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/scienceandfood/2017/01/17/...

Did Tyler Cowen really just argue that uneducated people don't like spicy food because they don't think far enough ahead in time?

Chili peppers can be used to compensate for otherwise poor flavor, but that is certainly not the only use case. Fat sugar salt and other spices can be used like that too.

If British food is obnoxiously spicy to you, you're probably very unaccustomed to spicy food.

When someone is accustomed to piquant foods, they aren't distracted as easily by the heat. Different peppers have very different flavor and spice profiles that are easier to pick up when you don't have to immediately drown out with milk. They also don't come through in small quantities, so if you haven't been desensitized you wont be eating enough to taste the other flavors.

I understand your frustration but I think you're being a tad unfair to chilli lovers with your gratuitous violence comparison. If all I'm getting out of a spicy dish is 'hot' then it's either a shit dish or I'm eating something hotter than I should be.

Thanks for making me laugh out loud (in a good way).

Let me give an analogy from music. Something is good rock music not just because it is loud and has fast shredding. That music is indeed probably crap and just hiding its lack of talent imagination and quality. However that does not mean all loud rock is crap, far from it. It takes a while to distinguish.

Good hot food is not cheap music stuck forever in it faux earnest chorus and mastered poorly onto a cd locked in on high db. That said there is a lot of such food around.

Both chocolate and chili peppers are native to the Americas, and both have been pairs for centuries. Also, both cause a release of serotonin, and it's believed that capsaicin is soluble in fat, which is in chocolate (maybe smoothing out the heat effect, allowing one to taste the chili?).

I've never heard of wasabi and chocolate though.

You sound like you'd enjoy Mexican chocolate drinks, if you get the chance. I once had the chance to try freshly-prepared Mexican hot chocolate -- at a museum, actually, in connection with Day of the Dead festivities -- and it's certainly very different from what one thinks of as hot chocolate most of the time. The drink's kind of like coffee; you can certainly taste the chiles (note: NOT wasabi :) ), and it feels like it could get you drunk if you drank enough of it.

Spanish and Hispanic chocolate drinks, from what I understand, are pretty close to the old Mexican style. (Even Nestle's "Abeulita" milk chocolate mix tastes pretty similar, at least to my palate.) There was a reference in Braudel (The Structures of Everyday Life) to an Indonesian Muslim prince who was intoxicated when he drank a chocolate drink that a Spanish embassy served them, and was enraged that they had treacherously given him an intoxicant to make him lose his reason; Braudel is really skeptical of the account, but trying Hispanic chocolate, especially Mexican, makes it sound a lot more plausible...

Chilies are popular around the world for exactly this reason, that you can take cheap ingredients and, with some chilies, create an appetising meal.

Because Britain lacks a (good) cuisine of its own, we tend to eat exclusively the food of other countries, and those dishes are often spicy.

> Britain lacks a (good) cuisine of its own

Comrade Orwell wrote a valiant little essay trying to fight that idea.

Plucky fellow.

(e.g. http://orwell.ru/library/articles/cooking/english/e_dec )

I love the second and last lines of your comment.

Surprised to hear they put chili in confectionery (assuming that is sweet items).

It's not just a British thing. Mango con chile is a popular Mexican snack.

Interesting. Now that I think of it, we used to eat semi-ripe mangos (which tasted both sour and sweet) with salt and sometimes chili powder, as kids. There is this variety of Indian mango called Rajapuri or Totapuri, slightly larger than the Alphonso ones. That was the one we ate in this way. Probably tastes good when ripe, too, but I remember eating the semi-ripe ones this way on holiday afternoons. Addictive.

Chili in chocolate is common, as are various spices in good chocolate. It's an interesting flavour combination - a lot of people don't actually like "pure sweet" flavours.

We have a bit of that in the US too. Not super popular though. Usually just chocolate but also some other stuff.

Atomic Fireballs :)

Have you had much in the way of East/South Asian foods or Latin American foods?

Speaking for the various Chinese culinary traditions because that's what I grew up with, the spiciness is usually integral to the overall flavor and mouthfeel of the dish. Szechuan food (traditionally spicy) without spice tastes off balance, as does Cantonese food (traditionally mild) with extra spiciness.

My experience with French food has been that it generally avoids significant spiciness, which is fine, but it also means that the recipes are not crafted with spiciness in mind. Szechuan recipes are definitely crafted with spiciness in mind.

I remember reading that that the English love for spices started very early and that this made English cuisine distinct from French cuisine even as far back as the Middle Ages.

Cloves/pepper/ginger - and now chillies.