A few spicy stories...
Some things need a little heat. I like a good amount of Cayenne in my chili. Some people think it’s way too hot but then there are people like Larry.
I like a little, a very little hot-pepper oil with some Chinese dishes. A half teaspoon mixed into a whole dish.
Larry picked up a shrimp chip and dunked it into the hot-pepper oil likes it was chip dip. Larry didn’t bat an eyelash and proceeded the process several times. My friend and I just stareed in amazement.
One of my favorite dishes at a Chines restraint now long gone was orange beef. They included dried & candied orange peel. I got takeout at another Chinese place and chewed the orange peel. WARRRRG! ‘Twas not orange peel, it was a whole Cayenne pepper pod ! Took a couple of bottles of beer and a few minutes to calm down the fire in my mouth to continue eating, carefully picking out anything that looked like a pepper pod.
I like wasabi with my sushi but it can up and bite you bad if you’re not careful. On the other hand, the right amount on a fatty cut of fish & there is almost no heat at all.
As far as killing bacteria, I bought some uncooked Cevapcici from my butcher. I found it three weeks later in the back of my fridge. I asked him if he thought it would still be edible after all that time and he said “go ahead, it’s full of garlic”. Figuring my butcher didn’t want to loose a customer by killing him by his bad advice causing my food poisoning I cooked it up, and, if anything, I thought it tasted better than usual as the garlic flavor was much more pronounced.
At one time I had a vegetable garden and grew Cayenne peppers. I would leave them out in the garage over the winter to dry. One year I found a few remnants of the plants - a rodent got in and ate ALL the pepper pods. I did not find a corpse or even ashes left over from the critter’s self-immolation. It must have been real hungry but I’ll bet it stayed real warm for the rest of the winter.
Another Chinese place I go to, I order it xtra spicy, have 3 of those pepper oil containers added to it, and usually bring in my own hot peppers 2-3 serranoes or 2 habanero/scotch bonnet types. I still consider that just an average level of spiciness for me.
It's actually quite rare that I DON'T add my hot peppers to whatever I'm eating. Omelets get them, any type of sandwich gets them.