Question for all the chili-heads in here. I've always loved hot food, but this is just my second year growing hot peppers. Last year I didn't really sample them fresh off the plant, but my goal this year is to make sure and eat one or part of each kind of pepper I'm growing so I can teach myself the different flavors and heat levels of various peppers. Long story short... my question is will my pallette continue to get "stronger", as in able to handle the heat easier, as the summer goes on and I taste more and more chilis, so by the end of the summer, peppers with the same heat as they have now won't feel/taste as hot? I'm just kind of curious as I don't want to think they aren't that hot once I get used to the heat from eating them fresh and kill some people that may not be used to the heat.
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"Seasoning" my pallette
- Thread starter Smokenstein
- Start date
In short, yes. If you stay on top of your "training" and continue to eat hot peppers, you will see your tolerance go up.
ditto, you'll get used to HOT chiles & you'll appreciate the flavors that certain chiles offer, while non-chileheads wont taste the flavors & will only freakout cuz they only notice the heat.
you keep eating hot chiles you'll be able to up your tolerance level, so for cooking for others take this into consideration, whats mild to you can be HOT to non-chileheads.
& maybe soon you'll get comments from people that say "I'm not eating any of your food cuz its HOT" or "I dont trust you saying its mild, cuz it might be mild for you but its hot as hell for me" (them speaking)
you keep eating hot chiles you'll be able to up your tolerance level, so for cooking for others take this into consideration, whats mild to you can be HOT to non-chileheads.
& maybe soon you'll get comments from people that say "I'm not eating any of your food cuz its HOT" or "I dont trust you saying its mild, cuz it might be mild for you but its hot as hell for me" (them speaking)
I've done this year after year preparing for fresh pods. Once nice ripe habs start showing up in the grocery store I buy the nicest ones I can find and snack on them with cheese and crackers. Usually I start with slices of hab on a cracker with cheese, and eventually I'm cutting the things in half and slappin em in the cheesy cracker in a few weeks. I've not grown enough to supply myself with enough heat throughout the winter until this year (hopefully!) so my tolerance always drops off as the supply of nice fresh pods decreases. Start with the orange hab slices on triscuits or other crackers with cheese, and soon you'll be in Chile heaven!
Sounds about right. I've already been munching on what little has been ready to pick so far this year. I'm starting to be able to pick out the flavors rather than just the heat which is what I want.
Just promise yourself to try one of each kind you are growing. That's what I did. By the end of last summer I had tried so many new and wonderful peppers. It's not like eating one jalapeno though gets you ready for a habanero, which gets you ready for a Naga. You have to continually eat them for the tolerance to go up. I also think it's a mindset though. If you know it's going to be hot, but you won't die and it will eventually go away, then you can enjoy it more. Then again, my dad always said "you can get used to hanging if you hang long enough".
JayT said:
Well, the hottest I'm growing is Caribbean Reds. I've gotten impatient waiting for those to turn and picked a one-inch green fruit and quartered it for some of my friends that were over Saturday. Had some heavy heat but I'm certain those will be much, much hotter by the time they ripen.
I had the bad experience of not expecting heat from a decorative pepper plant we have. I bit the tip and it wasn't hot at all, so I figured the heat would be tolerable up towards the top. It about gagged me. You're right though, as long as you're expecting it and know it won't kill you, most heat should be tolerable.
Tabasco so far is my favorite as far as overall mix of heat and flavor, but I'm looking forward to tasting the Reds once they ripen. My jalapenos actually seem to have a lot more heat than they had last year, and the cayenne's taste better than I remembered. I also have a Cowhorn and just tried one of those yesterday... tasted and looked pretty similar to cayenne to me.
