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Hello all

Is there such a thing as getting used to eating spicy? I would love to be able to but I am quite sensitive to it, and my mouth and throat burn at the slightest opportunity. I love the flavour though and the invigorating cleansing effect.

I have tried to spice just a little, using for example piment d'espelette instead of chilli flakes, or using less chile paste than advised in the recipe.

What would be your advice to build this up? Note, that I am French living in London (to get an idea of what products I have access to ! :)

Many thanks

Best regards

Agnes

I have started cooking spicier food in the past few years. I use chiles more frequently than I did five years ago, and I am also more familiar with which spices add heat. Still, I often adjust recipes down for the spicier ingredients, and there are some things I substitute (or leave out). For example, I always substitute serrano or jalapeno chiles for habanero chiles in Mexican food. And I will often use 1 chile when the recipe calls for 3. Last week I made Guajillo-chile fish tacos with cabbage slaw (from Lisa Fain's Homesick Texan). The recipe called for 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper; I used about 1/16 teaspoon. Also, I always take the seeds out of chiles, because I read that they are the hottest part of the chile.

If you find your food is too spicy after you have cooked it, add dairy products. Mexican food often uses sour cream as a condiment, while Indian food uses plain yoghurt. Or have a good piece of cheese on your plate, and chew it well before swallowing. Fruit can also absorb the spicy heat from your mouth (as I discovered several years ago when my co-worker shared her lunch with me). 

According to my Mexican and Thai cookbooks, they teach children to eat spicy foods by adding heat gradually, in small amounts -- and increasing the amounts & intensity over time. 

Yes, you can absolutely work your way up to this. No one (well, except maybe my housemate, but he's real special) is born with a palate that can handle a jillion Scoville units. I was moderately heat tolerant until I spent a couple of years in Bulgaria, where if you add too much black pepper your dinner guests will say, "hoo boy! You Americans sure do like it fiery!"

As previous reply says, start slow, work your way up. Dairy helps -- water does not -- and so do sugar, rice, and coconut. Keep in mind too that different chiles, while maybe having a similar Scoville rating, will still feel differently spicy. I can handle Asian-spicy more easily than I can handle Mexican-spicy sometimes. Who knows why. I haven't googled it. Also worth noting is that the same variety of chile will not be the same level of spicy throughout the year. When working with jalapenos, I will cut off the top and put the cut side to my tongue to gauge the level of heat. Sometimes it's a kick in the pants, sometimes it's nothing at all. And of course, the capsaicin is in the ribs, so you can always cut out as much of that as you need to vary. Or you could leave out fresh chiles entirely and just go by hot sauce. That's a great way to standardize.

One more thing you may find helpful is to just chuck the whole chile in the pot, uncut. This technique is followed not infrequently with Scotch bonnet peppers when you want the flavor but not necessarily the searing pain.

Building spice tolerance involves some suffering, no way around it. Find things that hit your limit, eat them, then find things that are just barely past your limit, and eat a couple of bites. Then go back to the thing that just hits your limit, and eat more of it.

Hello again!  You are coming to Boston, right?

Since you are in London, I would recommend visiting a Chinese (Szechuan or Hunan) or Indian restaurant there, and asking for mild spiciness.  Here in the US, most restaurants that serve spicy cuisines tone down the heat for American eaters.  If you tell the waitperson that you want mild spiciness, they are generally very good about doing that.  I have only a limited experience eating in London, but I would not be surprised if the same is true, given that English food is generally mild in its flavoring.

I do recommend restaurants over starting out in the kitchen because so much of cooking is knowing how much of anything is the right amount.  If you are not experienced with cooking with chilis and other ingredients that are sharp on the tongue, it will be hard to judge a recipe that uses it or alter it to your taste.  If you build up your ability to enjoy spicy food first, you can return to the kitchen and experiment with confidence.

Debbie

Yes I am coming to Boston :) In Jan and Feb ! In the meantime will be in London until Christmas, and then visit family in the Loire Valley and Dordogne area, and then off I go! After Boston, no idea, they could locate me anywhere in Europe, so time will tell.

Thanks for the tip! Indeed last time my parents visited me in London, I tried to cook a duck curry, tried to downplay the chili (divided quantity by 3), and ended up spicing way way too much. My poor father was the only one courageous enough to finish his plate, my mother and I gave up, despite adding all the sour cream and white rice I had to the dish. The dog did not seem to mind at all, fortunately.

Will try that - there is a Chinese place I have been eyeing next to my job in London.