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Comment by gfaure | Hacker News Reader

This article seems to conflate "spice ingredients" with spicy ingredients. I would have a hard time considering how food from cuisines that use (e.g.) aniseed, caraway, cardamom or poppy seed could be considered "spicy food".

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It also discusses “mean number of spice ingredients per recipe,” which is absurd. For example, lots of moles are not very spicy but have a lot of spice ingredients, including many kinds of chili peppers.

Mean annual temperature also seems like the wrong thing to consider. The temperature ranges seem more important.

I had this distinction between “spicy” and “spiced” pointed out to me by a former colleague. In my experience, “spicy” is used when there is heat/capsaicin involved and “spice” is used when there is only flavor. I think it is a cause for confusion for many people.

What is it like in other languages?

> What is it like in other languages?

Spiced / Spicy (pungent)

Spanish: Especiado / Picante

French: Épicé / Piquant

Swedish: Kryddad / Pikant

Piquant works in English too. Just rarely used and so that wont help in most circumstances.

Where did you get pikant for Swedish, im native and never heard that one

That's why, when I need to be clear about it, I say spicy hot (because hot in itself is also rather ambiguous) and uses a lot of spices when describing something that is rather more flavorful.

English is just not very good at describing flavor. Looking at British food, there might never have been the necessity.

In German there's scharf (spicy) and pikant (slightly spicy). As well as würzig (spiced).

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