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Well, this US house uses all kinds of spice and chilies. I think it depends where you are and how much you have traveled and sampled other cuisines.
Outside my back door I grow habeneros, serranos, hawaiian and thai chilies.
Thai, vietnamese, chinese, japanese, Indian, middle eastern and mexican food is cooked on a regular basis, along with a bunch of others.
Yeah, wasabi can be hot, it hits you in the sinuses in one good wallup!!
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Thais, Mexicans and Indians can really eat spicy foods.
What's interesting is that spicy Mexican foods and spicy Indian foods have different kinds of burn. Maybe the peppers used in the foods are different. With spiciness levels being equal, I can handle spicy Mexican foods without much difficulty if I have a beer at hand, but spicy Indian foods above mild have me gasping like a fire-breathing dragon. Most Thai foods I know are fairly mild, I can't comment there.
If you're saying that Mexican food is more spicy than Thai, that could be because of where you live and how Americanized they try or have to make it.
If you want authentic Thai (subjective of course), one hint is to avoid eateries that claim to serve both Thai and Chinese food as stated on their sign.
Lots of Chinese restaurants are trying to cash in on the Thai craze of the last several decades and include watered-down economical dishes.
Rarely, if ever, will you see a first generation Thai add Chinese to their menu.
For one, if prepared properly, Thai food generally uses less common American ingredients, and more of the hard to find authentic ingredients, so therefore, typically are more expensive.
In Los Angeles Thai dishes are generally three to five dollars higher than their Chinese counterparts.
If the prices of the two are similar where any of you live, someone is cashing in on the Asian craze and you're being overcharged, plain and simple.
I've stated before, elsewhere here, that authentic Southern Thai (found only in southern Calif. for some reason) does not use carrots, celery, tomatoes, Serrano peppers, common button mushrooms, ketchup, or onions...cheap, familiar, and all are edible.
Thai soups can contain Galangal, lemongrass, Kaffir lime leaves, and straw mushrooms, all with the exception of the mushrooms, are not edible friendly, so consequentially, people feel like they're overpaying because lots of material is still left in the bottom of the soup bowl when it's time to pay the check.
This may be one of the reasons why the Northern and Chinese/Thai places use all the edible ingredients listed in the former paragraph.
Slightly off, but back to topic..maybe you got some diced Serrano, Jalapenos, or fake Thai chilies. There were a couple of places in LA that didn't have Thai chilies and also used Jalapenos too.
I love hot & spicy foods.
I like well prepared complex Mexican dishes, but even in LA it was hard to find, unless it was homemade of course.
Other than homemade, it seemed that the restaurant food was less on the hot side and more on the greasy side, unless of course you slather it in hot sauces.
I do agree that Indian food wins the prize for having more dishes that pack the most heat.
Judging American spice tolerance is tricky and really depends on where you live in the country (and which culture you're speaking of).
Generic white Midwest or Northeast cuisine is quite bland...like European food. Asian, African, Caribbean and Latin American cuisine cooked by U.S. citizens in Houston, Miami, Los Angeles etc., is going to be way spicier than a local favorite in Osh Kosh.
I agree! We eat all kinds of chiles, and use a variety of hot sauces to spice things up. I can't imagine eating bland food day in and day out.
I found your list interesting; basically agree except for the bolded. I think that is very dependent on where you are. Most people I've met on the West Coast / Southwest really enjoy spicy foods, especially Mexican. I do have a perhaps outdated stereotype of Midwesterners only liking bland foods, though.
The Midwest is not monolithic or homogeneous when it comes to food.
Six years ago, we moved to North Eastern OH. We are originally from the NYC suburbs.
When we first had breakfast in NE OH, we ordered eggs. It was served with a condiment bowl of peppers. I asked the server and she told me they were "peppers and oil". We learned that people here put them on eggs, and bread.
At many restaurants, good ones - they are served in a bowl when the bread is served. It's normal. Locals butter their bread and then put peppers on the bread.
The butter and bread is a nice contrast to the hotness of the peppers.
I like them so much that I keep them in the house. The ones used locally are green Hungarian peppers.
You are out of your mind if you think Thai is hotter than Indian food. Thai food doesn't come close to Indian for spiciness, nor for the VARIETY of ways to hot us up.
This is an interesting thread. And when it comes to ethnic foods, there's a pattern I observed. The spiciness level of respective countries' cuisines follows the lines of latitude. (This factors in only each country's native cuisine, not the influence of immigrants, like Mexican food in the US, or Indian food in the UK.)
So basically, the closer you get to the equator, the spicier the food is. And there's a reason for it. Before refrigeration existed, people needed a way to preserve food. Pepper/capsicum is a good preservative. And in countries with hot weather, food spoils quickly. So adding pepper helps the food stay edible longer. By contrast, in cold weather, the outside air acts as nature's refrigerator, which makes spicy food pretty much unnecessary.
I hate to burst your bubble, but capsicum (hot pepper - actually ALL capsicums) was unknown outside of the Americas until Europeans started importing them from the Americas to the rest of the world. They caught on in India the quickest and soon became inextricably incorporated into the cuisines all across the subcontinent in ways they did not in other places - largely because they grew there much better than they could be grown in places with long cold winters and much shorter growing periods. Peppers are perennial plants where temps are high enough year round.
Before that, local cuisines (in and around India and the rest of Asia) depended largely on long pepper and black pepper (which could be white, green, red, or pink, depending on when it is picked and how it is processed) for heat/flavoring. Long pepper is a close relative to black pepper but does not taste the same. It was very nearly totally usurped with the advent of the hotter capsicums.
Neither capsicum nor long or black pepper have any significant "preservative" qualities, and given the fact that most Indians were and are vegetarian, little use for "hiding" the flavor of meat going off. Besides which, if meat were going off, adding pepper of any sort to it might hide the flavor (doubtful), but it definitely wouldn't have done a thing to protect anyone from food poisoning.
It's interesting how each country has their own tolerance and availability of spicy foods.
I'll make my list, starting with highest tolerance/availability to lowest tolerance/availability.
What are your thoughts?
Thailand: Most dishes have some element of spicy. They even have words in Thai for the different levels of spicy.
India: Pretty close to Thai, but there are some dishes without heat.
Mexican: Not all dishes have heat, but the ones that do are pretty dang hot. There are lots of Mexican hot sauces on the market.
Korean: Not as spicy as Indian and Thai, but it's still got some heat to it. Like Indian, not all dishes have spice.
Ethiopian: I've only had a few Ethiopian dishes. Only 1/5 had heat to them, but I didn't find the level of heat to be anywhere close to Indian or Thai.
Chinese: Most dishes aren't at all spicy. Szechuan style is maybe the only exception.
Italian: There are a few spicy sauces, but most Italian dishes are mild.
Japanese: I've never heard of a spicy Japanese dish.
American: Most American dishes have no level of spicy. Most Americans have a very low tolerance to spicy foods. The interesting thing is that America is home to the "you'll die if you use this" hot sauces. But I think those are more for macho challenges.
European: I don't think I've ever had anything spicy anywhere in Europe. Exception: Hungary with paprika
I don't think I would call it tolerance as much as style of cooking. As for America,it totally depends on where you live and your background. People in the south west have learned to love spice. It would be hard to find a kitchen in So. CA, AZ, NM or Texas and La as well that didn't have a good supply of spicy herbs and Peppers. Heck, even as a kid, 60 plus years ago my dad always had hot pickled peppers in the fridge, as well as chili powder in the spice cabinet. plus hot sauce. Remember spicy doesn't mean only hot, it means different things to different people.
I think the list is fairly accurate, with the exception of America. The midwest and upper midwest generally use less spice than other parts of the country. Even that is a matter of opinion. I know people raised in Texas who can hardly eat pepper on her food and some raised in Minn that put hot sauce on everything. That is why I use the word, generally.
I made the mistake the first time I tried sushi about 15 years ago, of thinking wasabi was guacamole. I smeared it all over my sushi only to get a most unpleasant surprise. I thought my heart was going to stop. I'm Italian, born in NY, raised in Florida and then Long Island and we don't use much in the way of "hot" spices. There are a few dishes that I will add a little red pepper to but I like to taste my food rather than cover up the flavor with hot sauce or additives.
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