“Absolutely,” Hayes says. “Anecdotally we absolutely know it’s true. It’s not, ‘If you didn’t start eating it at five, you’ll never learn to love it.’”
LOL! I also know this is TRUE! There is a misconception that folks in South America love spicy food. Not true. South of Central America they actually HATE spicy food and have almost no toleration for even mild spiciness. My wife is from Venezuela (originally Colombia) and when I first met her she had absolutely NO toleration for even the least bit of spiciness. Once I made sure to get MILD salsa and she almost choked on it.
However, over the years I've sort of made her try some spicy food that wasn't too hot. Mainly jalapeno in the scrambled eggs. I can't stand eating flat scrambled eggs without something in them to spice it up and usually I go with jalapeno although if I am out of it, I use hot sauce. Anyway, over the years my wife has developed a tolerance for spicy food and now she really likes it. I believe I have opened a whole new gastronomic world for her since spicy is almost always preferable to flat tasting food. So I know first hand that one can develop both a tolerance and a love of spicy food.
I find eggs do a lot to cover the taste of hot spices.
Sorry ... no hot food for me!
I don’t understand the logic of burning out your taste buds with spices.
I don't understand people who enjoy cremating their taste buds!
My idea of salsa is spaghetti sauce. The kind without that spicy basil stuff in it.
Of course.
The more one eats something the more one can get used to it and like it.
Also, as we get older our tastes can change and extreme tastes don’t seem as extreme.
Oh, yes, 100%.
If for some reason I haven’t had spicy food in a while, I need to reacclimate.
OTOH, my son, ratboy, eats habaneros neat.
Good source of Vit. C, too.
/johnny
I have no sense of smell, so my tolerance for spicy food is likely higher. Even so, I don’t like it torturously hot, but a little spice adds interest. In fact, that’s exactly what regular old black pepper does, and most people use that on at least some foods.
I’ve loved spicey foods for a long time, but some work for me better than others, and I’ve found that I’ve lost my tolerance for whole jalapeños, which are comparatively mild, due to digestive discomfort, seeds probably. Some peppers have always been difficult to tolerate though, for instance Thai hot peppers. It’s so severe it’s almost like a chemical burn with blistered lips. I don’t see how a tolerance can build for blistering, lol. I’d say there are limits for most people, imho, even those who love hot foods.
Taste is always a matter of taste. People who make a statement about what I should or should not like are like liberals who are always trying to tell me what is best for me.
To some degree, one can educate and retrain their tongue, and throat to tolerate hot spices, but at some point, the troika of your
Heart, Blood Pressure and Stomach will rebel and say, No! Not Acceptable. You have been warned. If you take even one bite more, the three of us will send the whole thing back upstairs by express elevator, whether you’re ready or not.
They most certainly can!
There is an ongoing experiment in heat toleration ongoing as we "speak" - with a sample size of 330,000,000. The test is to slowly increase their water temperature VERY slowly at first, and then ramping up the degree of temperature increase as time goes on. The 7-year experiment is nearly over, as the temp now nears the boiling point.
I usually don’t eat spicy food, but found that I can get used to it in about four days. I just put a jalapeno pepper into anything I cook, and after a few days the pepper doesn’t burn anymore.
I grew up in a family that loves spicy food. My step kids had never been exposed to it. One girl fell in love with it instantly. She now eats spicier foods than I do.
“South of Central America they actually HATE spicy food and have almost no toleration for even mild spiciness.”
That reminds me of the first time I had authentic Peruvian food. I was surprised at how mild it was. Lots of potatoes and beef, all deliciously done, but not even a hint of chili peppers.
The Cuban food I’ve had has been relatively mild, too. Lots of citrus and cumin, but not the sort of blazing hot eats like you’d find in say, in some Jamaican dishes (Scotch bonnet peppers are insidious, I tell you! Insidious!)
Bit of a strange reaction when eating one of your "favorite dishes."