Isn’t it strange how people who live in very hot countries like to eat hot, spicy food? You would think they would prefer nice cooling things, but Mexicans love their fiery chillies, Indians, Sri Lankans, Thais and south-east Asians generally, adore their hot curries; North Africans have their equally fiery harissa and Jamaicans can get high as a kite on their jerk chicken made with incendiary Scotch bonnet chillies.
The ‘Scoville’ scale, which is used to determine the heat of chillies, puts the Scotch bonnet at the very top of the list (as a friend of mine learned to her cost). As she and her husband are partial to ‘hot’ food and because chillies are quite easy to grow, she decided to plant a few of the seeds.
She licked the tip of her finger to pick one of them up, planted it in a pot, and then without thinking, licked her finger again, but immediately wished she hadn’t. The heat from that little seed had transferred to her finger and very nearly burned a hole in her tongue.
Not all chillies are quite so aggressive, and a lot of the heat is contained in the seeds and ribs which can be discarded, but they can still give you a nasty burn. So to be on the safe side, never touch your eyes or lips when preparing them, and wash your hands thoroughly afterwards. Or better still, wear some of those readily available thin surgical-type disposable gloves.
Everyone’s tolerance to chillies is different. One person’s mild curry can be to someone else a raging bonfire (me for instance). Aficionados like to think they can taste subtle differences in flavour even in the hottest varieties of chillies, but when your month is on fire, I wouldn’t think subtlety is the first thing that comes to mind.
As we’re in the middle of the fireworks season, here are some recipes that can go with a bang if you are a chilli fan, or with just a whimper if you’re not. I’ve given a sort of ‘ball park’ quantity of chillies, but just add more, or less, according to taste. Either way, a crisp and cool green salad and some ice cold beer are the best accompaniments.
Thinking about what I said at the beginning – hot country/hot food – I wonder if it works in reverse. Do Eskimos in their igloos eat huge quantities of ice cream, or Laplanders love to lick ice lollies? Perhaps they do – who knows?