• If you can't find a "Hot" category that fits, post it here!

What was your introduction to 'hot stuff'?

nee

nee

(Sorry if this is in the wrong forum...please move it if need be.)

I was thinking tonight, exactly what was the event in my life that originally introduced me to 'hot food' and onto growing chilli's of my own.

For me, it was a doner kebab when i lived in the UK, New Years Eve, possibly 1997 or 1998.

I was out partying with friends, and some time after midnight, i remember we all headed to a kebab shop in Bodmin, Cornwall...and when asked the question "chilli sauce salad?" from the shop staff, i replied "yes"...not thinking about the chilli aspect of the forthcoming kebab-fest....

Anyway, i remember we all got served, and headed to someones house to eat them and down a few more beers...

I remember sweating buckets whilst eating this kebab..i reckon as it was NYE, the shop has amped up the chilli to have a bit of fun!!!! ....i had 2 towels on hand whilst i was consuming it, as i was sweating like a good-un!
I hadn't had anything as hot as this in my life, but i somehow knew i was hooked for life. Each mouthful seemed to hurt, yet i kept going back for more, which i guess paved the way to where i am now!?

I wish sometimes i could go back in time and re-eat that kebab with chilli sauce....just to see how my tolerance has built up over the years, as i'm guessing what hurt my mouth over 10 years ago wouldn't even bring a sweat nowadays!

So over to you guys....what was your first chilli / hot food experience? And do you reckon it would still seem hot to you now?
 
I was very fortunate to be blessed with a little Irish grandmother that loved hot stuff! One of my fondest memories of her was when we would go out to eat and she would bust out her own personal shaker of red pepper flakes or travel sized bottle of tabasco. My ultimate lifelong achievement was when we were sitting eating stuffed peppers one evening when I was still at Penn State University and she threw in the towel before I did. Unfortunately, she is no longer with us and I wish she would have been able to sample my spicy products.
 
That's a great story Redtail :) She'd have been proud i reckon!

I meant to say in my first post....my mum is into spicy foods too, but i think i have overtaken her tolerance nowadays.
I have just organised a hot seed delivery for her back in the UK, so we'll see how she goes!
 
My Dad came home from the Korean war after having been exposed to Korean peppers. He liked them there, but couldn't find them then in our part of New England. We did have a lot of Italians living in our area though, and had no trouble finding pickled Pepperoncini and pickled cherry peppers stuffed with ham... and every pizza joint and Italian sandwich shop had a shaker of crushed pepperoncino out on the counter or at the tables. Seems pretty tame now, but we used to think we were pretty bad when we'd sit down and polish off a whole jar of pickled Pepperoncini in one sitting.
 
hot wings at Taco Mac as a child in georgia. First hot thing i remember eating. After downing a load of wings i would go and play Mortal Kombat 1 because it was all the rage back then.
 
  • Like
Reactions: nee
Till 5 years ago I really disliked the hot stuff and didn't eat any pepper, hot sauce or so. Then I saw Adjuma (or Ojemma, Aji Umba or Adjoemba) in the supermarket. I liked the smell of it and used in a stew. From then I tried more peppers and hot sauces. Growing them was not a big step, I growed already Sweet Bell peppers. (called "paprika" here in the Netherlands)
 
  • Like
Reactions: nee
I think my hot food appreciation is partly stubbornness. When I was perhaps 6 or so my parents were growing hot peppers in our garden. I did not understand what they were exactly so I thought I would help myself to a nice bright beautiful red cayenne pepper...bit it off the plant no less. The stomach pain was rather intense I remember much worse than my mouth being on fire. Lucky for me my mother made me some tuna sandwiches to calm my stomach. After that I resolved not to let a plant get the best of me.
But I do enjoy the flavor too. ;)
 
  • Like
Reactions: nee
10+ years ago, Dave's Insanity Sauce on my pizza instead of the customary Tabasco/Franks. Whoa!! Heat plus flavor, what a concept. All that has transpired since I "blame" on that experience.
 
  • Like
Reactions: nee
A habaneuro I force fed to my friends,( not really) and then seein them in pain. Hehe. And then blazing wings at Buffalo Wild Wings. And seeing my friends in pain. :D
 
my parents used to make me eat a tblsp of tobasco whenever I said a bad word, I said alot of bad words :shocked: then i started liking the flavor, so they moved up to trappey's pepper sauce, then the whole peppers in the trappey's by the time I was 10 i was already accustom to decent heat, then at 14 i got my first restaurant job, and w/ that came a whole new world of heat! I have been in love w/ chiles for years, then when I went to culinary school, I found out there were soooo many more than I knew i started cooking w/ as many as i could find in all the ethnic markets and grocery stores, but after eating the hottest things I could find for many years, I finally discovered the superhots and you guys, and of course i grew and bought as many as i could get my hands on, been trading steadily over the winter and now thanks to the kind folks here, i have 93 varieties of beautiful chile peppers growing this year and 150 more to try out next year! life is good and Im so happy just found my first full sized superhot pod today! :dance:
 
A few of us rode to the grand opening at Disney,Orlando(yes, I'm old). The line was about 10 miles long so we said FTS and headed to St. Augustine. We ran into some other lunatics on bikes and headed to a seafood-beer-bong hit bash. The chowder was great ! Scorch your nose hair great.
Long to short, it was Datil. I left with a pocket full of seed.It's still my favorite pepper.Poblano holds a distant second.
 
It was a gradual escalation... I've always enjoyed some amount of pain, I used to have wasabi eating contests in my preteen years, and I worked my way up to the local pizza shop's Suicidal wings around 16 or so. Things really took off at my last job at a produce department. My physics teacher in high school would infrequently come in and buy our entire stock of habaneros, so one day I got bored and curious, and doing what I always do when I get bored, I sampled produce. I remember the concerned look on my supervisor's face when he came into the back room, had to fess up...

:fireball:
 
I was fortunate enough to grow up with a Hispanic best friend. We were at a family gathering of his and his uncle had a handful of small yellow peppers. He told me it was Mexican tradition for the guest to eat the host's offering/gift - not knowing any better and with the encouragement of his family I chewed it up and, "damn, did a bee sting my tongue?!"

Up until that point I did not know that there were things that hot out there...

So, I vowed to grow something hotter than what he gave me and return the "tradition".
 
My great grandfather, off the boat from Czechoslovakia, fed me hot peppers from his garden when I was about 5 years old. I didn't even know this until 2-3 years ago when my parents informed me of this. Thanks great grandad!
 
eating a bite of cayenne followed by a bite of tomato in grandmas garden when I was about 6 or 7....

Arenal Botanical Garden said:
A few of us rode to the grand opening at Disney,Orlando(yes, I'm old).
Click to expand...

the first time I went there, the canals were not even finished and that was 1980...I was working at the University of Florida and about 24 or 25 of us went down for the weekend and stayed at Camp Wilderness...wow, what a weekend...they almost kicked us out of the park at 3am when we were still partying....
 
When I was a kid my mom made steak sandwiches with Steakums, rolls, and cheese (hardly a Philly cheesesteak), and my dad would put Frank's Red Hot on them. WAY to hot for me when I was little, but gradually I learned to like it. That and pepperocini from the local pizza shop are my earliest memories of hot stuff. Dave's Insanity mixed in with wing sauce was the first really hot sauce I had, and that was about 15yrs ago. Later, a coworker introduced me to various types of habs and other peppers he was growing in his garden, and invited me to my first Hotluck. I think that is when I really became a chilehead. Now I pay it forward by introducing everyone I can to our world...
 
I came from a military family. When I was a little kid around 6 yo or so, pop had a buddy, Floyd, who used to carry around a bottle of Tabasco in his pocket. Put the stuff on everything. I tried the stuff. I thought it was okay. Later on when pop retired from the USAF and we moved to the farm, we had several acres planted with jalapeno's. That was back in high school and in the Rio Grande Valley. Everybody ate jalapeno's with everything. Back then even Whataburger had whole pickled jalapenos in little plastic bags on a rack at the counter where you ordered your burger. I never really thought about it that much. I thought everybody ate hot sauce and chiles.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top